


keep my heart out of the cold

by haleofStilesheart



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Christmas, Christmas With Family, Dysfunctional Family, Getting Together, Homophobic Language, How Do I Tag, I Tried, M/M, Meeting the Parents, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Skyfall, Romantic Comedy, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 19:19:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14408829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haleofStilesheart/pseuds/haleofStilesheart
Summary: Q has become rather used to spending Christmas. Mostly because the alternative is spending Christmas with his horrible, dysfunctional family.When he unexpectedly runs into his mother a few days before Christmas, he lies and says he's spending Christmas with a friend from work, accidentally blurting out the name of none other than 007.Q figures a simple phone call will fix things; Bond will tell Q's mother they can't make it and Q can go back to spending Christmas with his cats and a bottle of wine. But Bond has other ideas.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is the first thing I ever started writing for OOQ and it's going to be LONG. It's also going to feature stuff like: dysfunctional, emotionally abusive families, shitty ex-boyfriends, brief homophobic language, and references to canon-typical violence. And it's going to be Jane Austen levels of slow burn.  
> There isn't a chapter schedule and updates will probably be pretty sporadic, so sorry in advance for that, but I hope you all enjoy it!

Q had become quite accustomed to spending Christmas alone.

For the past several years, shortly after he had been recruited by MI6 and become the new Quartermaster, he had elected to remain alone in London for the holidays. Rather than return to his hometown for Christmas, he had decided to remain in his cosy Hampstead Heath flat with a hot cup of tea and the lovable balls of fluff that were his cats.

Over the years, he had taken to spending his mandatory week of leave ― usually working several missions in the beginning of December to receive said leave ― curled up on his comfy sofa or sprawled out in his big queen-sized bed. More often than not, he never even deigned to change out of his infamous pyjamas.

When he did decide to take a short break from sleeping as much as humanly possible to retroactively compensate for all of the days he went without sleep while working, he would usually devote some time to his various, oftentimes neglected hobbies. He had a to-read list several pages long he hadn't made any progress on for months and a playlist full of songs Moneypenny had recommended him.

Other times, he would tinker with new weapons prototypes while holiday films played on the telly. Even while on leave, he was still the Quartermaster, fiddling with his gadgets and working on various coding projects.

Occasionally, he would take some time to decorate his tiny flat so that it actually felt like the holidays. He wasn't usually one to place a great deal of importance on home decor but he supposed that the holidays warranted an exception.

With an artificial Christmas tree set up in one corner, thoroughly enrobed with tinsel and twinkling lights that he had quite masterfully rigged to flash along to the Doctor Who theme song, and other various decorations taking up residence on his bookshelf and walls, his flat became a veritable winter wonderland.

His cats always seemed to especially enjoy that part of his unorthodox holiday routine.

Stravinsky, a large brown tabby Maine Coon who preferred chicken treats over salmon ones and was usually as lazy as possible, would spend hours toying with ornaments that fell off the tree. He would frequently bat at the tree's polyvinyl chloride branches in an attempt to knock more ornaments down.

Meanwhile, Felix, a black and white tom with bright yellow eyes and a penchant for hiding under the bed to attack Q's ankles in the morning, amused himself by staring in awe at the scintillating lights on the tree. He would spend all day gazing at the twinkling lights as they flashed every color of the rainbow.

After decorating his flat, stepping around his cats to string up lights and wreaths and whatnot, Q would reward himself by plopping down on his sofa to catch up on his favourite programs. He had various queues on several streaming services waiting patiently for him.

He took advantage of his leave to indulge himself in a few dietary delights. Apart from a nearly obscene amount of tea, his holiday diet usually consisted of ready meals and cheap Christmas pudding from the nearest bakery.

Though sometimes, he would splurge a titch and buy himself a dozen or so fancy cupcakes that were so decadent, he could only eat one or two before feeling a bit guilty about his own self-indulgence.

It may not have been the most glamourous or the most traditional Christmas, full of presents and family and holiday cheer, but it was much better than the alternative.

Much better than driving back to his hometown of Reading to spend the holidays with his family. Better than returning to the house that had never once been a real home to him and subjecting himself to the vicious scrutiny of his thoroughly dysfunctional, oftentimes downright cruel family.

It wasn't that he didn't enjoy spending time with his family, because quite often he actually did. And it wasn't that he didn't love them, because he truly did.

It was just that there were often times when he wondered if they actually loved him, too. And the times he forced to wonder that were exponentially more frequent than the times that he was sure they really did.

His mother Evelyn, or Evie as she was more commonly referred to by her husband, was an undeniably lovely woman. She exuded grace and poise with everything she did, whether it be as simple as putting the kettle on for some tea or rearranging a vase of flowers or something more intricate like knitting or playing her piano.

With her long, wavy strawberry blonde hair, made even more striking by her fair complexion, she was the very definition of an English rose. Her eyes were mostly light green, sectoral heterochromia accounting for the splash of hazel-brown in her right iris, but the slight abnormality only complemented her beauty, adding a touch of exoticism.

In her youth, she had been a model. Her face had been plastered all over the covers of local magazines and hung in the windows of neighbourhood chemist's shops.

Her beauty had never faded as she had aged, it had only become more distinguished. Said beauty was emphasised by the way she carried herself with all of the majesty and refinement of a queen, in her heirloom diamond necklace and teardrop earrings, an air of grandeur following her whatever she went.

A trained musician, having been taught by her own mother, she had filled their childhood home with beautiful music. She would spend hours at her piano, playing masterpiece after masterpiece until Q had memorised every note.

To most, she seemed like a model mother. Like she had just strolled off the screen out of some heartwarming family film in her beautiful dresses and pristine makeup and perfectly coiffed hair.

She had always seemed heavily involved in her children's lives as any good mother should be, supportive of their goals and encouraging of their aspirations. She had been the mother who attended every choir recital, every school play, every rugby or football match, her children's most loyal fan.

But as someone who had grown up living with her, who had been raised by her, Q knew much better.

Her elegance and gentility were little more than masks for her oftentimes erratic behavior, her over-dependence on the cache of white wine she kept hidden in her dresser. And her purse and her car and closet.

It kept her mind off the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes after her modelling career had quietly folded, the wrinkles that only she cared about. It also distracted her from the stench of other women's perfume on her husband.

In reality, behind her carefully constructed facade of a put-together mother, all of her finery was borrowed, loans that she could never repay to her past glory. She had robed herself in gold and silver, emeralds and amethyst, while there had been nights that her children had gone to bed hungry.

As for her supportiveness? Her involvement? They too were nothing more than a thin veneer for her overbearing ways, her demanding, critical nitpicking of every little detail of every little thing.

Nothing was ever quite good enough for her. No hard-earned accomplishment or academic commendation was up to par with her nigh impossible standards. Unless said accomplishments had been made by her older children, Q primarily the one to suffer her condemnation.

And even further, her tendency of meddling in her children's affairs, from their desired career paths to their love lives, wasn't at all appreciated. Especially not by Q.

It was partially because he was a naturally private person, frequently accused of being a modern-day hermit. He had been introverted since birth, even as a baby when he would cower away from most and cry until he was hoarse if he was around too many people for too long.

And it was partially because her over-investment in his love life could only spell trouble considering the fact that he was gay and his father had made it very clear how he felt about that, how he felt about all gay people.

Speaking of his father, William, he seemed like the perfect English gentleman. He came from a highly distinguished family in Reading, his name alone carrying a rather substantial amount of clout in town.

Apart from his ancestors' accomplishments, many of which he often liked to take credit for himself, he was distinguished all on his own. A decorated veteran of the Royal Army with the scars and medals to prove it, he had become an entrepreneur by opening his own hardware shop in the heart of town after finishing his military service.

He was a pillar of the community, often donating his time and money to whatever local cause he seemed worthy enough of his charity. He was a volunteer rugby coach and benefactor of several local programs designed to offer opportunities to those who were less fortunate.

A stout man of moderate height, somehow always standing much taller than he actually was, his presence was imposing enough to always make itself known. His affinity for somber black suits and jumpers along with fat cigars no matter the occasion only made him seem more distinguished, if not a bit reminiscent of a cartoon villain.

His dark coloring, with his black hair greying at the temples and beginning to thin, grizzled goatee, and steely blue eyes that could pierce like the sharpest blade, only made him more imposing. Face etched with deep lines and wrinkles from decades of stress and raising his children, he looked a bit like a bulldog.

But like with any bulldog, behind all of the loyalty and geniality, there was a mouth full of sharp teeth and the potential for deadly viciousness. Q's father was no different.

He reigned over his household with an iron fist, domineering and cold as ice. If things didn't go his way, if his wife and children didn't march along like little pawns at his disposable in a wretched game of chess, he would throw violent tantrums befitting of a toddler.

Q couldn't count the number of fine china plates that had been lost to his father's churlish tantrums.

He was a veritable King Lear, demanding love and loyalty and false flattery. When his impossible demands were not met, he had no issue making his disappointment known, usually in the form of belittling rants and drunken ramblings, empty liquor bottles thrown against the wall.

And like King Lear, a king turned tyrant, he was proud and self-righteous, irritatingly smug as he barked orders from his throne at the head of the family dinner table. But he wasn't too proud to turn away the money Q sent him every month to help with various maintenance and housekeeping and medical fees.

And he wasn't too proud to let even the cheapest Scotch turn him into a blubbering fool, either.

His expectations were even more impossible to meet than Q's mother's. Nothing was ever anywhere near good enough for him, at least not when it came to his youngest child, Q.

Because, as though it wasn't enough that Q was forced to endure his parents and their scrutiny, he also had siblings. Four to be exact. Two brothers and two sisters, all of whom were older and the apples of their parents' eyes.

Meanwhile, Q was the proverbial apple that had fallen too far from the tree and promptly and rather unceremoniously run over by a lawn mower, mangled beyond recognition. In his parents' view, anyhow.

That was predominantly because, rather than join the military like his father and both of his older brothers or devote himself to raising a family like his eldest sister, Q had decided to take a different path. He had committed himself to serving Queen and country another way; by joining MI6.

Not that he could really tell his family that. They remained under the impression that Q worked in the IT department of some sort of private security company. Not that it would have changed much if his parents knew where he was really employed.

His father frequently made it clear how disappointed he was in Q, unbiddenly mentioning it every time they spoke for the sole purpose of belittling his son's vocation. His mother usually just sipped her wine and remained quiet, occasionally sighing about how much she would love more grandchildren, at the very least.

Q's siblings weren't much better. If anything, they could be even worse.

William II, named after their father and more than happy to follow in his footsteps without any consideration for the fact that he wasn't actually obligated to do so, was the oldest of Q's siblings.

He had taken after their father in both looks and beliefs, ascribing to the same antiquated concepts about gender and race and sexuality. He had also inherited their father's mercurial temper.

Oftentimes, the only real difference between the two Williams, aside from their age, was that the younger of the two preferred vodka over Scotch. Simply because it was cheaper.

He had been a star rugby player throughout his school days, a second row forward who had towered over the others and outweighed half of them. Cheered on by his father in the stands, he had gotten his jollies from intentionally harming others with frequent displays of excessive force.

His aggressive recklessness had won the team dozens upon dozens of victories commemorated by bulky trophies and features in the local newspaper. It had also won him the heart of nearly every girl in town. All of which had only served to reward his cruel streak.

Like their father, he had joined the Royal Army as soon as he had been old enough to enlist, leaving his glory days of rugby behind. With the same predatory determination that he had brought to the rugby field, after ten gruelling years he had risen to the rank of major, much to their father's delight.

Following several more years of service, he had been honorably discharged and returned to Reading to settle down only a few blocks away from their parents' home. When their father had decided to retire due to the osteoarthritis in his right knee, exacerbated by an old service injury, Will had taken over the operation of the hardware shop.

Only a few years after that, he had met his wife, Elizabeth, at the hardware shop. She had been looking for a new wheelbarrow, her effortless beauty and guileless charm immediately reeling Will in. They had gotten married shortly afterward, following a whirlwind romance.

Elizabeth herself was an absolute doll. A florist by trade and baker by hobby, Q didn't think that he had ever seen her without dirt on the knees of her jeans or flour on her shirt.

She was one of the sweetest women Q had ever met with her sunny disposition and beautiful smile. Kind and generous to a fault, she was like a fairy tale princess who had leapt right off the page.

Every year on Q's birthday, she sent him one of her delicious lemon pound cakes, with a splash of Earl Grey tea, and a handwritten note in her elegant scroll full of gardening tips. She never tired of teasing him over how much trouble he had keeping the flowers in his window boxes alive.

In a show of scandalous familial disloyalty, Q had never been ashamed to admit that he preferred his sister-in-law over his own brother. How and why such a wonderful woman had fallen in love with, let alone married, such a brutish dolt would forever baffle Q.

But he tried to push those thoughts away, especially since Elizabeth and Will had two children together.

Jacob was a little boy of four of a half with his mother's brown hair and his father's mossy green eyes. He was as boisterous as they came, an avid lover of chasing frogs and lizards in his mother's garden and getting as muddy as possible in the process.

But he was also extremely sweet, always making sure he never hurt the animals he caught and releasing them as soon as possible. And he never failed to volunteer to help his mother with her baking, dutifully measuring out the ingredients under Elizabeth's watchful eye.

Will and Elizabeth's younger daughter, Sophia, was just a babe. At just over a year old, she too young to be much more than tired and hungry with the occasional fit when she felt she wasn't being paid enough attention.

Q could only hope that their children turned out better than Will had. He likewise wished the same for Amelia's children.

Amelia, as beautiful and graceful as their mother with all of the same bite as their father, was the second oldest of Q's siblings.

Unfortunately, while inheriting their mother's long strawberry hair and flawless complexion, Amelia had also inherited Evelyn's tendency towards putting an overwhelming amount of importance on vanity and vapidness. Both women were rather preoccupied with appearances, sacrificing substances for their self-absorption.

A small-town socialite if there had ever been one, Amelia had always viewed herself as a disenfranchised princess. And she would do most anything to reclaim her crown and all her glittering jewels.

With a nearly rapacious taste for red wine and living above her means, Amelia had defaulted to the recourse of any pretty girl with a disdain for actual work and instead relied on the generosity and foolishness of men.

Throughout secondary school, she had dated wealthier boys who would buy her jewellery and sneak her some wine from their parents' cellars as roundabout compensation for a clandestine bit of slap and tickle.

After finishing secondary school, barely passing with abominable marks, she had taken up modelling herself. Like their mother, Amelia's photos had been used for local advertisement, her pretty face in magazines and display windows of local boutiques.

For months, she had pointed out her pictures around town. No matter how many times she had already done so, feigning surprise when new photos of herself were displayed.

When her modelling opportunities had begun dwindling in both number and payout, she had turned her attention to skillfully enticing a lawyer, Oliver, into marrying her. All it had taken was a tiny little hole pricked in his condom and he had fallen right into her spider's web of deceit.

Of course, with turnabout being fair play, it was only fitting that Amelia realised only after marrying Oliver that he wasn't quite as wealthy as he had led her to believe during their courtship. Apparently, all of the wining and dining he had done had put a rather considerable strain on his bank account. That and his penchant for gambling away half his wages.

Five children later, she was still married to the greedy lawyer who would probably kill a man for the change in his pocket. Amelia remained married solely for the fact that she wasn't at all willing to raise her children on her own or even attempt to lift a manicured finger working an actual job. Instead, she dedicated herself to being a homemaker and mother.

Both of which were very commendable. Her greed and utter viciousness, like that of a rabid Rottweiler, were not.

Like a shrieking banshee, she would whine and moan and complain until she got her way whether it be using an expired voucher at the grocer's or speaking to the manager at Starbucks. She was essentially like an overgrown child, spoiled to the point of entitlement.

And like any entitled princess, she always wanted more. That included men, her greed giving way to infidelity.

Chronically unsatisfied with her life, Amelia had amassed a string of lovers to buy her fancy clothes and expensive jewellery. A few of them had even whisked her away for trips to Paris or London, leaving her children behind to lounge around exorbitant hotel rooms and overcharge her credit cards on room service.

Q had no idea how her children — Alexander, Ethan, Ava, Mason, and Madison — who were often left in the care of their paternal grandparents, would be affected by her narcissism and her neglect. Which was why he was rather relieved that Robert didn't have any children.

Only thirteen months younger than Amelia, his Irish twin so to speak, Robert was Q's middle sibling.

Robert had always been quiet above all else, at times almost eerily so. Because of that, his other defining traits were primarily comprised of things that he wasn't.

He wasn't loud or disruptive or aggressive like Will. Nor was he greedy and whiny and attention-seeking like Amelia. He wasn't particularly adventurous or spontaneous or necessarily bold. He was simply quiet.

A tall man with vivid strawberry blonde hair and pale blue eyes, Robert had always been rather eye-catching but he made himself even more prominent by preferring to fade into the background. One of life's little ironies, Q supposed.

Among a raucous family of spotlight stealers and arrogant braggarts, he would rather sit in silence with a book or sketchpad in his lap. In another life, Robert would be an artist, his sketches and portraits achieving worldwide recognition, but that wasn't this life.

Instead, a natural born athlete, Robert had played football throughout primary and secondary school. A centre midfielder, he had been the best player on the team, winning them various championships and breaking multiple school records.

But while Will had been totally preoccupied with his rugby career, Robert had been more concerned with his academics. His dedication had proven fruitful when he graduated at the top of his class in secondary school, an achievement their parents had gloated about for years.

But as academically minded as he was, he opted not to attend university. At least, not immediately.

Following graduation, he had joined the military, enlisting in the Royal Air Force. Unlike either his father or older brother, he had only decided to serve the requisite three years after the completion of training.

After leaving the service, he had enrolled in medical school in Edinburgh. Their parents had bragged about that, as well.

Their mother had hailed him a selfless champion of the less fortunate, as though he was some sort of miracle healer who could cure ailments with a single touch. Their father had done much the same, boasting to anyone who would listen about his doctor son.

Fortunately, Robert had managed to remain humble. It was something that Q had always appreciated.

Robert had always been his favourite brother in an unfair competition between his two older siblings. He had always been a silent pillar of stoic support that Q could often lean on for quiet comfort.

But unfortunately, while Robert didn't share their father's bigoted views or racist attitudes nor did he share their brother's proclivity for violence, he never once spoke up when either their father or brother was spewing vitriol. He had never once stood up for Q when Will had gotten physically violent or their father became verbally abusive, he had simply remained a silent bystander.

Not that Q necessarily blamed him.

Now, their childhood long behind them, he practiced as a surgeon in Oxford. A specialist in paediatric medicine, he had dedicated himself to trying to cure innocent victims of ravaging childhood diseases, to endeavouring that no child's life was snuffed out far too early and playgrounds stayed loud with the laughter of toddlers.

He had met his wife, Sarah, a renowned paediatric oncologist, at the hospital when they had been working an especially challenging case together. Robert had fallen for her almost immediately, struck by her ambition and dedication to their profession.

They had gotten married two years after they met, slowly getting to know each other as they worked side by side. They had plans to adopt children sometime in the future when they had their own practice and more time to devote to raising children.

Luckily, Q didn't have to worry one whit about Robert raising children. He would be a wonderful father, caring and attentive in all of the ways that their own father had never been.

Likewise, Sarah, the natural caregiver that she was, would be an absolute model mother. Any children she had, either through adoption or otherwise, would be raised in a home full of love and gentle nurturing.

And then there was Q's final sibling, his sister, his dear Poppy.

Poppy was oftentimes singlehandedly the only saving grace of their family, a beacon of light in a home otherwise full of nothing but acrimony and anger and bitterness. A veritable angel in a den of demons.

Older than Q by only a few years, Poppy had always been rather close to him. She was the only one of all of his siblings who had actually treated him like a brother and not some sort of glorified whipping boy or part of the backdrop of their childhood home.

With her light brown hair and bright hazel-green, she was drop-dead gorgeous. Her downright angelic smile and flawless complexion had only made her even more so.

But while she had attracted dozens of admirers since she had started primary school in her pigtails and school uniform, she had always had more important things to worry about. Namely, her books.

She had been an avid reader nearly from the moment she had first opened those pretty hazel eyes. Nothing, not even the cutest boys in town, could take precedence over her beloved collection of books.

By the time she was six, she had been reading Shakespeare and Tolkien. At ten, she had read every Jane Austen and Bronte sisters books several times over.

She used to read to Q on rainy days and sleepless nights when he would tiptoe into her room in the middle of the night and curl up on the foot of her bed. She had read him everything from Keats and Lord Byron to Melville and Dickens, epics and poetry and tales of adventure.

She would read to him until the wee hours of the morning, so absorbed in her performance the time slipped away entirely unnoticed. And every time, after reading about the handsome nights and fearless princes, she would sigh and hug whatever book she had just read to her chest, starry-eyed as she wondered aloud about when her own chivalrous hero would come for her.

Q had done the same, only much quieter, either under his breath or just in his head out of fear that their father or eldest brother might overhear. But Poppy, all too astute, had known nevertheless.

And because of that, Poppy was the only member of his family that he had formally come out to, unnecessary though it may have been. He had simply left the rest of their family to live with the conclusions that they had made about him years ago.

It had simply made sense to tell Poppy, his dear sister, his own knight in shining armour. When they had just been children, she had become Q's de facto protector when she had seen that he was desperately in need of one.

All of the other children in their neighbourhood, in their whole town, boys and girls alike, had quickly learned that to torment Q was to incur the wrath of his sister. Her wicked right hook had become infamous throughout their neighbourhood.

Of course, Poppy's brand of justice hadn't completely deterred bullies. No, nowhere close. But she had made Q's life much more bearable.

True to form, Poppy had gone to university to study literature and education. Her love of all things literary led her to instill that same love in a new generation, to maintain the tradition of great English literature.

Since graduating, with honors, of course, she had written three novels, all of which were absolutely wonderful. Full of intrigue and adventure, and just a dash of romance, they had developed quite a following.

Each and every one held a place of unparalleled honour on Q's bookshelf.

On days when he especially missed her, usually when it rained or when the city was quieted by a blanket of snow and Poppy was probably flying off to sunnier climes in Paris or Rome, he would reread them. Curled up in bed with his cats and his tea, he would finish them all as though he hadn't already memorised every last word.

He always ended up calling her afterward, whether it was to gush over her seamless character development and clever plot twists for the umpteenth time or to just talk to about her recent travels. Sometimes, he called just to listen to her voicemail message, to hear her voice when he felt lonely.

For years, Poppy had been his only reason for attending Christmas dinner with his family. Well, her and the chance to see his nieces and nephews that he would otherwise never be invited to visit.

But even with his sister's bolstering company and the bright smiles of his nieces and nephews, it had all gotten to be too much. All of the scrutiny about his job that he couldn't talk about under pain of expatriation, his sore lack of military experience, his love life that would always be taboo and unfathomable in his family's eyes.

It was just too much.

And eventually, it had simply become too stressful, too toxic, for him to handle. Especially when all the wine and whisky he drank by the bottle and Valium he usually took by the container to help him make it through the holidays had started to lose their numbing buzz.

So, on the precipice of a nervous breakdown the likes of which Britain had never known, he had impulsively given his family a rather flimsy excuse about having to work on Christmas and started a new tradition of avoiding his family and spending the holidays with his cats.

He had never had such a peaceful Christmas before that first one completely alone. There had been no fighting, no drunken rages or long-winded rants about just how exactly he was wasting his life playing with computers, no cruel indictments against his sexuality.

Instead, there had just been a quick supper of leftover cottage pie along with some slightly stale shortbread biscuits he had picked up earlier that week for afters. There had been a long, surprisingly restful nap on his sofa with his cats sprawled across his lap after a marathon of documentaries on BBC.

The only thing that hadn't been much of an improvement was the niggling sense of guilt that had nipped at him throughout the entire evening. The impending feeling that something horrible was going to happen because he hadn't subjected himself to being his family's scapegoat for yet another night.

Fortunately, since that first Christmas in the safety and comfort of his flat, the tight vise of guilt in his chest had gradually loosened enough so that he could fully enjoy his solitary Christmas celebrations. So he could bask in the solitude and soft quiet of his holiday alone, in the peace of his own home, in the comfort of his own bed.

It had quickly become a tradition that he didn't fancy changing anytime soon. One that he wouldn't trade for all of the new tech in the world.

Of course, not everybody saw his solo celebration as the veritable godsend that it was. More often than not, it was misconstrued by others who twisted into something it wasn't.

Most people thought it was depressing. A hallmark of a lonely man who lived a lonely life. Others thought it was something to pity him for.

Whenever he mentioned it to others, usually in passing when the Q Branch minions discussed their own holiday plans, they would typically say the same platitudes that dozens of others had. They would simper and coo about what a bloody shame it was, about how the holidays were a time for family and he shouldn't be spending it all alone.

The only thing that was worse than their trite comments were the painfully unsubtle looks they sent him. Pitying, commiserative looks, like he was a kicked puppy in need of condescending sympathy.

Eventually, Q had just stopped mentioning it altogether. There was no real reason to. Now, if anyone asked, he simply told them that he had plans. Nothing more.

Because I'm all actuality, Q preferred spending Christmas by himself. With the exception of his cats, anyhow.

So when Moneypenny asked him if he would like to pop into her flat for some Christmas cocktails, promising plenty of champagne and some rather juicy gossip about Villiers, he had politely declined. Raising a suggestive brow, clearly thinking he had plans with a lover, she had told him to enjoy his holiday.

And when Tanner had invited him over for Christmas dinner with his family, he had apologised and succinctly explained that he already had plans. Tanner had just smiled and told Q that he would say hi to his wife for him.

And when he unexpectedly ran into his mother at a local supermarket, he had done the only thing he could think of. He had managed a half-arsed lie about spending Christmas with a friend from work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short introduction to set everything up! Hope you're enjoying it so far!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q runs into his mother at Tesco after working nonstop for days, making sure Bond doesn't get himself killed in Central America. In his sleep-deprived haze, he lies and tells his mother that he's spending Christmas with a friend from work, accidentally blurting out Bond's name.  
> When his mother simply invites his friend to dinner as well, Q realises that he now has to ask James Bond to Christmas dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, finally getting to something beyond exposition! I hope you all enjoy it!

Q had just finished a fifty seven hour shift spent operating as 007's handler for a gruelling, gut-wrenchingly bloody mission in Central America when he realised that if he wanted to eat supper anytime in the near future, he would have to stop by the supermarket.

  
Originally, Q had simply been overseeing a rather routine escort of a British dignitary to an embassy El Salvador. It was a mind-numbingly banal operation, one that he probably could have conducted in his sleep.

  
Four field agents from the London office of MI6 had been appointed as the dignitary's personal bodyguards, four of the best agents available to them. It was more of a formality than anything, a requisite part of the procedure for such political assignments.

  
Q had been anticipating a short, rather boring mission during which he could sip his Earl Grey and sample the doughnuts Tanner had quite generously brought in. Everyone else had been expecting the same.

  
But things had quickly gone tits up. Namely, when the field agents escorting the dignitary had been ambushed.

  
All four of the agents, and a decent amount of innocent bystanders, had been unceremoniously shot just a few metres away from the embassy. As their blood had seeped out onto the dusty pavement, the dignitary had been kidnapped.

  
The attackers had immediately absconded from the scene in an unmarked minibus devoid of license plates, windows tinted. Gunshots and screams of passersby had still been ringing in the air, echoing in over the comms as the minibus sped away.

  
007 had been sent in shortly afterward.

  
With a double-0 agent suddenly in play, while Mallory dedicated his time to damage control with the media, Q's workload had exponentially increased. Within the span of five minutes, his assignment had been altered to include both being Bond's handler and investigating the group of men who had kidnapped the dignitary.

  
Hacking into several embassy security cameras and the official criminal records of the El Salvadoran government, breaking about a dozen or so international laws in the process, Q had finally managed to discover the identities of the kidnappers. He assumed Mallory would forgive his blatant disregard for the law considering a beloved dignitary's life could very well be in danger and he had found the information he needed in record time.

  
His little foray into the El Salvadoran criminal records files had supplied him with a rather handy line-up of perpetrators. There were six in all, five men and one woman, but only one mastermind of the abduction and consequential murders.

  
The mastermind in question was a man by the name of Eduardo Martínez.

  
He had started his career as a criminal by pickpocketing wealthy, unsuspecting tourists in his home city of San Salvador. The pickpocketing had been supplemented by his burglarizing of vacant homes, stealing everything from money to trinkets he could sell for a few cents. He had only been eleven years old at the time.   
With bigger fish to fry, so to speak, local law enforcement had essentially given Martínez a slap on the wrist. There were more important things to worry about in the murder capital of the world.

  
As he had entered his teenage years, his crimes had quickly escalated to more violent offences. The charges he had accumulated had included arson and sexual assault along with various drug offences.

  
Only a few years later, he had advanced to murder. With all of the cold determination of a natural born killer, at age seventeen Martínez had murdered his own older brother to gain entry into a dangerous, albeit relatively small, gang known as Las Palmas.

  
The gang had not lasted for very long on its own. Only a couple years after Martínez had joined the group, it had been absorbed into the ranks of Mara Salvatrucha, better known as MS-13.

  
Martínez's criminal career had only become more bloody. With dozens of brutal murders and absolutely barbaric tortures credited to him, primarily ones employing the use of 'necklacing', Martínez had rapidly risen through the ranks.

  
Eventually, he had become the leader of his own _clica._ And with that position came authority and the power to control underlings.

  
Based on the various text messages Q had been able to remotely extract from Martínez's cell phone, kidnapping the dignitary had been Martínez's idea. Apparently, they were planning on ransoming the dignitary for as much money as they could.

  
Fortunately, Martínez had more brawn than brains and hadn't thought to use a disposable cell phone. Because of that, and the fact that Martínez hadn't even bothered to turn off the GPS, Q was able to track him through El Salvador.

  
With a detailed map of Martínez's activity provided by Q, Bond had been hot on Martínez and his _clica's_ heels from the moment he landed in the country.

  
Following Q's instructions, Bond had tracked them from the Torre Futura in San Salvador to a vacant building in the heart of Santa Ana. There, in the crowded city streets that smelled of bright, almost fruity, coffee, he had nearly apprehended them.

  
Nearly was the operative word as one of Martínez's underlings had sabotaged the Teatro Nacional de Santa Ana, rigging it with powerful, homemade explosives. Right on cue, as Bond had approached the building where Q had tracked Martínez to, the theatre had unexpectedly exploded.

  
Century-old construction had been no match for explosives made with ammonium nitrate and gunpowder. The theatre had exploded in a spectacular display of carnage, debris and bodies alike sent flying to litter the busy streets.

  
Bond had narrowly avoided being crushed by a large chunk of concrete and adobe as he had tried to pursue Martínez. But while he had successfully avoided getting flattened into a double-0 pancake on the streets of Santa Ana, Bond hadn't managed to escape the explosion completely unscathed.

  
With a laceration across his right cheek worryingly close to his eye from a piece of shrapnel and a mild head contusion from a nasty fall, Bond had been somewhat slowed down in his continued pursuit of Martínez. Especially since night had fallen, casting the unfamiliar country in darkness.

  
While Bond had searched for a vehicle to steal that was appropriate for all manners of pursuit, whether it be through the city or more rural areas of the country, Q had resumed his digital tracking of Martínez. To his dismay, it had appeared that he and the rest of his _clica_ were fleeing to the southeastern part of the country.

  
Bond had followed them to San Miguel where Q had tracked Martínez's cell phone to a seedy nightclub. Apparently, he and his _clica_ had decided to go out and celebrate their successful kidnapping of an important dignitary.

  
The disreputable place had been full of cheap alcohol, a wide assortment of drugs, and horrifyingly young prostitutes. A rather dramatic shootout had ensued in the middle of the club after one of Martínez's men recognised Bond from the streets of Santa Ana, completely destroying the once pristine club.

  
Again, Bond had rather miraculously come out alive with only relatively minor injuries. Only a superficial wound on his upper arm from where he had been grazed by a stray bullet and a dark smattering of bruises on his chest and abdomen served as physical proof that he had been in any sort of altercation.

  
His luck was astounding. Q told him as much, shaking his head at the fact that Bond could escape a gunfight with barely a scratch while he could barely make it from his flat to the tube without some sort of minor disaster like tripping over his own shoelaces or spilling his tea all over himself.

  
Unfortunately, while Bond had emerged victorious, he had also discovered that Martínez's phone had fallen into the possession of someone else, a member of his tight-knit _clica_ . A member who had proven to be rather reticent about Martínez's whereabouts.

  
After a thorough beating courtesy of an exasperated Bond, the other man, a drug dealer named Diego Rodriguez, had announced that Martínez had fled to Nicaragua. But he had no idea where exactly in Nicaragua, if his last words were to be believed.

  
Frustrated and exhausted, Q had tried to find another way to locate Martínez, and with him, the kidnapped dignitary. But it had proven unsuccessful.

  
Martínez had apparently realised how he was being tracked and decided to abandon the use of modern technology altogether. His deviation from mainstream technology left Q stymied and absolutely infuriated.

  
Dangerously close to pulling his own hair out by the handful, Q had shifted gears and decided to research Martínez's personal life further. In hopes of finding some sort of pressure point they could possibly exploit, he had immersed himself in every last detail of Martínez's life.

  
As underhanded and abhorrent as it was, digging into someone's life to find family and friends they could use against them, Q had no other choice. Not if they wanted to recover the dignitary. Preferably alive.

  
With Mallory's permission, Bond had taken a few hours to himself, patching up his most recent injuries. Holed up in a cheap motel, he had licked his negligible wounds and indulged in a bottle of _Tíc Táck_ .

  
After a quick dinner of _pupusas_ and fresh _curtido,_ Q's empty stomach rumbling thunderously at the mere mention of food, Bond had climbed into bed. Yawning softly, he had claimed that he only needed a few hours of rest before resuming his pursuit of Martínez.

  
Almost as an afterthought, Bond had mumbled a suggestion that Q get some sleep himself, insisting that someone could take over as handler for a few hours. Q had only sighed and concisely explained he had more work to do before he could even think about thinking about getting any sleep.

  
That's not to say that he wasn't quite touched by Bond's polite concern. He supposed that it was just part of Bond's notorious charm, his oftentimes misguided tendency to swoop in like some sort of white knight and take care of others even whilst in dire straits himself.

  
But touched or not, Q had forced himself to push aside all thoughts of Bond being some kind of gallant, fairytale prince lest he wind up mooning over the man like so many others at MI6. The last thing he needed was to embody another gay stereotype, fawning over straight men like some kind of starry-eyed schoolboy.

  
Instead, he had resumed his thorough research, perusing through everything and anything he could find on Martínez. By then, he was one of the only people left in Q Branch, sitting at his table under the dimmed lights.

  
Around two a.m., one of the code analysts, who had been tasked with deciphering some code nicked from a Ministry of State Security agent on 005's last mission, stepped out to fetch themselves something to eat. They had returned fifteen minutes later with a veritable feast, arms full of takeaway containers and brown paper bags.

  
Without any prompting, they had brought a few containers of sesame chicken and white rice over to Q, along with a couple of fortune cookies. Q had made a mental note to give them a raise as he eagerly dug into the container of sweet chicken.

  
While Bond had slept, shifting around noisily on creaking mattress springs and letting out the intermittent snore that filtered into Q Branch through the comms, Q had continued his desperate search. Occasionally, he took a bite of the delicious food the analyst had generously brought him.

  
Eventually, Q had managed to find the perfect pressure point; Martínez's long-time girlfriend, Rafaela Velazquez.

  
Velazquez was a Honduran native who had moved to Nicaragua several months ago, a current resident of Matagalpa. According to the criminal records of the Honduran government which Q had hacked into, breaking several more laws in the process, Velazquez was a former prostitute and MS-13 drug mule.

  
Just a bit more searching had unearthed some documentation of her previous occupations, from a maid at a hotel to a cashier at a small bodega back in Tegucigalpa. From what he could find based on a few Nicaraguan employment records, she was currently working as a waitress in a local bar that doubled as a strip club to support her and her daughter, Luciana.

  
A quick check of Velazquez's medical records proved that none other than Eduardo Martínez had signed the birth certificate, confirming that he was the father. Pressure point found, Q had investigated further.

  
Velazquez's cell phone records indicated that whenever Martínez was in Nicaragua, either for business or pleasure, she would meet him at the same hotel, usually in the same room. Q may not have been straight but it didn't exactly take a genius to figure out what the pair got up to in that hotel room.

  
A nearly laughably effortless hack into Velazquez's phone gallery had uncovered a picture of her work schedule, providing him with a convenient list of her upcoming shifts. A check of her text messages revealed a few rather crude text messages that hinted at a recent hookup with Martínez.

  
When Bond awoke from his fitful slumber, complaining about poor mattress quality, Q had informed him of Velazquez and her strategic importance. He had explained where Bond could find her, sending the directions to his MI6 issued cell phone.

  
Apparently not very much of a morning person, Bond had grumbled under his breath while dragging himself out of bed, muttering about needing a shower. Q had never seen anyone so miserable about going to a strip club.

  
Then again, he doubted such establishments were very entertaining when one was wounded and exhausted.

  
Especially when one had to drive several hours to get to said strip club. Bond may have been extremely fond of driving but an early morning trek through neighbouring Honduras into Nicaragua wasn't the most idyllic drive.

  
Fortunately, the drive was rather uneventful. There had been no bombs or booby traps for Bond to encounter on the road, no mudslides or monsoons to hinder his pursuit.   
During the long drive, Bond had drummed his fingers while listening to old Banda Blanca songs on the radio and complaining like a grumpy old man about the unbearable humidity. Meanwhile, Q had continued trying to pinpoint Martínez's location himself, hoping to find the dignitary as soon as possible.

  
It was a fruitless endeavour considering Martínez's sudden rejection of modern technology, making Q feel a bit obsolete. He could only imagine what kind of panic his predecessor had undergone during the shift from exploding pens to toppling regimes with only a few keystrokes.

  
All thoughts of early retirement and a cosy little cottage in Essex had fled his mind however when he had intercepted an email sent by one of Martínez's underlings. It was a letter to one of the major international news outlets concerning the ransom for the dignitary, a demand for several million dollars.

  
Temporarily leaving Bond with a provisional handler, Q had taken his findings to Mallory who had given him permission to remotely delete the ransom demand before word could get out about any sort of ransom. There was no use in allowing anyone to panic more than they already were when one of MI6's, if not the world's, best agents was en route to rescue the dignitary.

  
Eventually, Bond arrived in Matagalpa, the city sprawled out before him. A few more hours of surveillance had followed his arrival.

  
Bond's so-called surveillance had primarily consisted of him sitting at an outdoor café across the street from Velazquez's place of work while sipping rich, slightly nutty coffee and indulging in plate after plate of sugary sweet buñuelo. So went the glamorous life of a double-0.

  
Worlds away from the glamour of being a secret agent, Q had been busy splitting his attention between helping Tanner contain the media frenzy and outfitting a belligerent 008 for their next mission. He had shifted his focus back to Bond when the agent had announced he had eyes on Velazquez.

  
After an effortless seduction punctuated by painfully horrible chat-up lines that had no business whatsoever being as successful as they were followed by obnoxiously loud sex — which Q was forced to endure listening to thanks to new guidelines that prohibited him from closing the line of communication during missions — Bond had managed to extrapolate Martínez's next stop.

  
According to Velazquez in her talkative, post-orgasmic haze, Martínez was on his way to the picturesque municipality of Bluefields, Nicaragua. Her sleepy mumblings, interspersed with soft yawns, indicated he had a safe house there.

  
Bond had hastily redressed in his rumpled suit as Velazquez drifted off to sleep, slipping out of their hotel room to steal another car for the long drive to Bluefields. While Bond had complained about the humidity again, Q had delved into pinpointing the exact location of Martínez's hideaway.

  
Bond arrived on the outskirts of Bluefields just as the sun was rising over the aquamarine waters of the Caribbean Sea, tinting the sky a marbled ombré of rosy pink and pale aqua. Q had a feeling the knowledge that a murder was lying in the midst of the scenic town somewhat diminished its beauty.

  
It hadn't taken very long after his arrival for Bond to find Martínez's hideout. Mostly because of the very detailed description Q had provided him with after examining satellite images he may or may not have procured through less than legal means.

  
With all the grace and poise of a lion on the prowl, Bond had brashly stormed the safe house, Q rapidly relaying directions in his ear. In a spectacular show of brute force and deadly skill, he had singlehandedly, and rather efficiently, eliminated the entire _clica_ within the span of only half an hour.

  
With only Martínez left to neutralise, Bond had boldly ventured deeper into the safe house where the mastermind of the abduction and reign of terror was hiding with the dignitary. The barrel of a gun being pressed to the dignitary's temple hadn't deterred Bond one bit when he finally cornered his prey.

  
A quick shot to the leg had brought Martínez down. Another shot to the head had made sure he wouldn't get back up.

  
The dignitary had gotten in a few good hits of her own, giving Martínez a good beating herself as she had wriggled out of his bruising grasp. Q had been rather impressed, the dignitary clearly having a wicked left hook.

  
"Boxing classes," she had quipped when Bond had commented on the effectiveness of her punch after eliminating Martínez for good. The heady buzz of adrenaline had still been rushing through her veins as she laughed, blood from Martínez's broken nose on her knuckles and pieces of his brain matter splattered on her once white heels.   
Not two hours later, the dignitary had been safely escorted to the embassy in Managua. Of course, that was only after a quick, grossly inappropriate tryst with Bond in the backseat of his stolen car.

  
Again, Q had been forced to listen to the little romp around the sheets, rolling his eyes and muttering under his breath about double-0 agents and their hedonistic disregard for proper procedure. He'd had half a mind to report Bond but ultimately decided against it, not wanting to deal with even more paperwork.

  
Eventually, after two godforsaken rounds of sex, Bond had bid the dignitary farewell and boarded his own flight back to England. Officially signing off, Bond had said goodnight to Q, advising him to get some rest, and promptly devoted himself to sleeping off his long mission on the flight.

  
As for Q, who had suddenly regretted requesting a private jet for Bond after having to endure awkwardly listening to yet another round of sex, he had simply sighed in relief and set about gathering his things for his return to his flat. His bed, with its plush blankets and mountain of pillows and luxurious memory foam mattress, was calling his name.

  
Giving half-hearted waves to all of his minions, Q had trudged out of Q Branch with his messenger bag slung over his shoulder. He was halfway to the main entrance of MI6, close to dragging his feet, when he had abruptly realised that the only food he had in his flat was for the cats, having been putting off grocery shopping for weeks now.

  
Cursing himself for his tendency towards procrastination in his personal life, Q had nicked a pen from a random assistant's desk as he passed and hastily scribbled a grocery list on the palm of his hand. Jotting down the essentials he would need, he had made his way to Tanner's office to fill out the necessary forms used to hire out company cars.   
Stifling a yawn, Q had made polite conversation with Tanner who looked rather exhausted himself. After bidding the Chief of Staff goodnight and accepting the keys to a nondescript black Volvo, Q had made his way to the car park.

  
With bags under his eyes and a thoroughly rumpled and wrinkled outfit, he had driven to the nearest supermarket, praying to whatever gods may be that he wouldn't fall asleep at the wheel. Through sheer force of will, he managed to stay awake through the short drive to make it to the busy Tesco Superstore on Kennington that was abuzz with late-night shoppers.

  
It wasn't the most ideal of situations but he was desperate and hungry and didn't fancy eating Royal Canin for supper. So, exhausted and still reeling from the fact that he had been forced to watch helplessly as four field agents had been ruthlessly slaughtered on his watch, Q had taken a deep, steeling breath and braved the busy crowd.

  
All he wanted to do was grab some food, eat as much as he possibly could with his stomach still roiling from the excessive amount of carnage and bloodshed he had borne witness to over the past few days, and fall into bed to sleep for a week or so. But things could never be that easy. Not for him.

  
He had been sorely tempted to simply grab a few frozen pizzas and some instant ramen as a tribute to his university days so he could hurry home to his darling cats but he had forced himself to resist the urge. Mostly because he knew that if he did that he would just end up in the same predicament in only a few days time.

  
He had strolled through the crowded aisles, selecting the cheapest cuts of mince and chicken he could find before moving on to the less populated produce section. There, he had carelessly tossed a hotchpotch of various fruits and vegetables into his trolley, apples and grapes and some russet potatoes.

  
Personally, he would have liked to just fill his trolley with as much sweets and junk food as he could possibly find but a nagging voice in the back of his head — which sounded eerily like an exasperated Moneypenny whenever she had to physically tear him away from his computer when he had been working far too many hours to be healthy — whispered that he should probably eat something that wasn't processed and full of trans fats.

  
Of course, to counter the abundance of fruits and vegetables he had added to his trolley, he selected a fair amount of unhealthy comfort foods, namely bags of crisps and packages of biscuits. And, as per his usual wintertime routine, he made absolute certain he grabbed a nearly obscene amount of ice cream and alcohol.

  
The holidays were fast approaching, Christmas only a handful of days away, and he wanted to be sufficiently sloshed when he endured the dreaded yearly phone call with his mother.

  
Said phone call was usually little more than a long-winded guilt trip courtesy of his mother. Its contents were primarily condemnations of his reluctance to return home for Christmas dinner and brutally effective insults disguised as concerned comments.

  
He was definitely going to need some wine. Maybe some scotch, too, for good measure.

  
Using his pilfered pen, Q had dutifully crossed off the items on the short list he had scrawled on his palm as he continued his half-hearted shopping. He just wanted to get everything he possibly needed and return home to his cosy flat and cuddly cats and shitty made-for-television holiday films.

  
Over the years, he had developed a titillating drinking game for said terribly cheesy films involving copious amounts of alcohol and an overabundance of holiday clichés. It was one of the most efficient ways of ensuring that he would be absolutely blitzed for the duration of the holidays.

  
He had been comparing prices on brands of tea, debating with himself between the two tins of Earl Grey, when it happened.

  
He was squinting down at the labels on the tins as he held them up in his hands, his eyes tired from staring at various computer monitors for so long without rest, when he heard an unmistakable sound. It was the rhythmic click of high heels on linoleum.

  
It was a sound he had quickly become accustomed to while working at MI6. Usually, it heralded the arrival of Moneypenny in Q Branch.

  
Distantly, he wondered why anyone in their right mind would willingly wear heels to the supermarket, his own feet aching in sympathy. But he ultimately decided that it was none of his bloody business and he had more important things to worry about like which brand of tea to purchase.

  
But like many things he chose to ignore in his life — emails from Tanner that he let stagnate in his inbox for weeks on end; having an ill-advised affair with one of his older brother's best friends; that curious looking mole on the back of his leg — it came back to bite him in the arse. Because not a moment later, accompanying the sound of the out of place heels, was a distressingly familiar voice calling, "Quinton!"

  
Against his better judgement, sleep deprivation taking a heavy toll on his decision making skills, and the advice of the voice in the back of his head — this time sounding a bit like Moneypenny _and_ Poppy — screaming at him to just keep his head down and his mouth shut, Q tilted his head up to see who was calling his name.   
Of course, he already knew who it was. Only one person in the entire world called him by his real name.

  
Sure enough, strolling down the tea and coffee aisle towards him with all the grace of a queen, was none other than his loving, caring mother.

  
She was decidedly overdressed for the grocer's in a smart black peplum dress that accentuated her slim waist and black almond toe high heels that highlighted her shapely legs. A light grey knit cardigan was draped artfully over her shoulders like a cosy shawl.

  
Her hair, just as bright and vibrantly red as the last time he had seen her, was tied up in some sort of intricate bun. Black hair sticks, cheap glossy plastic made to look like lacquered wood, held the bun together and added an extra touch of flair to her sophisticated ensemble.

  
As always, her makeup was perfectly done, nothing out of place or anything less than pure perfection. Her cheeks were dusted with a subtle bit of peachy pink blush that matched her shiny lip gloss, her pale eyelashes made sooty and dark by mascara and a hint of deep grey eyeliner.

  
She looked like she had just wandered out of a photoshoot and decided to take a rather impulsive, impromptu trip to the market for whatever reason. Her outfit was completely out of place considering most of the other shoppers, Q included, were dressed for comfort in jumpers and jeans or, in Q's case, comfortable wool trousers.   
But of course, his mother would never be caught dead wearing a pair of jeans, no matter how comfortable or better suited to the cold weather. Not when she could max out her credit cards in order to dress like a runaway supermodel.

  
Q wasn't the least bit proud to admit that he jumped half a metre into the air in shock at the unexpected sight of his mother in London of all places. He dropped the tins of tea with an inordinately loud clatter, announcing to everyone else in the aisle just how startled he was.

  
"Mother?" He asked aloud, though it was mostly to himself, essentially muttering to himself incredulously. He was sorely tempted to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't having some sort of terrible nightmare.

  
He must have been. Why else would his mother be in London? In the middle of a Tesco, no less?

  
He had to be dreaming. He had to be. He was sure that in a moment he was going to wake up at his desk in Q Branch where he had fainted from exhaustion after working the mission with Bond.

  
It definitely wouldn't be the first time. He couldn't even remember how many times he had accidentally fallen asleep at his station, head pillowed on his folded arms as the noseguards on his glasses left ugly red indents on his face.

  
He had a sofa in the tiny private office he had been given upon his promotion to Quartermaster for that express purpose, along with a chaise lounge in his workshop. Moneypenny and more than a few concerned minions had insisted upon it after he had driven himself to exhaustion one too many times. Even a few double-0 agents had voiced their concern.

  
But the moment never came. No intern or analyst shook him awake, no blaring alarm indicating some sort of dire emergency startled him from his slumber. There was just his mother still making a beeline towards him, a dreadful, inescapable reality.

  
Bending down to pick up the tins of tea he had dropped, he pushed his glasses further up his nose, a kind of self-soothing habit he had developed back in primary school. He took a few deep, calming breaths, trying to steel himself for the inevitable.

  
Straightening up, he carelessly tossed the more expensive tin of tea into his trolley where it landed amongst a box of cereal and a litre of milk. He placed the other tin back on the shelf, fiddling with its bright, yellow paisley label.

  
"What are you doing in London?" He questioned as his mother drew near, valiantly resisting the urge to fidget under her cold gaze. He adamantly reminded himself that he wasn't a scared little schoolboy anymore, that he was thirty two years old for god's sake!

  
But it did little good. All of his bravado faded away as his mother critically glanced at the contents of his trolley, her eyes lighting on the numerous pints of ice cream and bags of crisps he had picked out earlier. She let out a small hum in the back of her throat, clearly disapproving of his dietary habits.

  
Pulling her cardigan tighter around her shoulders, showing off her fresh French manicure in the process, she gave Q a quick once-over, as all. Q swore to himself.

  
Of all the days for him to unexpectedly run into his mother, it just had to be this one. The one where he had bags under his red-rimmed eyes, tea stains on his white shirt, and hair somehow even more disheveled than usual, streaked with grease from how often he had run his hands through it.

  
His deep brown cardigan was rumpled, completely unbuttoned to reveal his tea stained shirt and the smudges of sesame sauce on his maroon pin dot tie. His charcoal trousers were so wrinkled their glen check pattern was distorted and his casual trainers, worn for comfort rather than style for long days spent handling missions, were hopelessly worn out.

  
He was sure he looked like an absolute slob. Like the misanthropic recluse who rarely ventured outside that his family seemed to think he was.

  
His mother's lip curled in that subtle way he was all too familiar with, the way that made it clear she absolutely detested what she saw. He only barely refrained from sighing in defeat.

  
Tucking a loose strand of wavy hair behind her left ear, the movement making her diamond stud earring sparkle garishly under the overhead lights, she offered Q a tight smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. Dropping her hand back to her side, she explained, "I thought it would be nice to pop in for a quick visit with Cynthia. It is the holidays, after all. A time for family."

  
_Lovely,_ Q thought, forcing himself to plaster on a polite smile. _Less than a minute and the guilt trip begins._ But rather than incur his mother's wrath by mentioning his observations, he simply nodded and mumbled a generic platitude. "That's very nice of you, mother."

  
"You remember Cynthia and Claire, don't you?" His mother inquired, fussing with her cardigan again, picking bits of imaginary fluff off of it. She took a step to the side, letting Q peer over her to squint at the other two women where they were standing at the end of the aisle.

  
Cynthia had been a close friend of Q's mother for as long as he could remember. She had lived just a few blocks away from his childhood home in a beautiful old brownstone with her husband and daughter.

  
Unfortunately, she had gone through a somewhat messy divorce with her husband of ten years after she had discovered his extramarital affair. It was something Q's mother had never had the fortitude to do.

  
After kicking out her husband and sending him divorce papers, Cynthia had dedicated herself even more so to her work. And to raising her daughter, Claire.   
As a writer for the local newspaper, mostly reviewing local plays and best-selling books along with her own column for advice, she had been able to work from home most days. Which had allowed for more time spent with Claire.

  
Cynthia was a lovely woman, kind and polite in the way that Q's mother only ever pretended to be, with all of the graciousness of some divine angel. Over the years, she had become rather like an aunt to Q and his siblings, a regular fixture in their home.

  
Throughout Q's childhood, she had usually been present for every holiday, every birthday, every Sunday dinner with his family. She had provided the kind of genuine support and encouragement they should have received from their own mother.

  
In the same way, Claire had become like a cousin to Q and his siblings. She had been especially close to Poppy, her dearest friend throughout primary school and well into secondary school, only a few months older.

  
They had been as thick as thieves, practically joined at the hip in the classroom and around the neighbourhood. Claire had been Poppy's confidant and Poppy had been Claire's biggest supporter, constantly encouraging the more introverted girl to break out of her shell a titch.

  
Claire and Q had been rather close as well, in the way that an exasperated pseudo-sister was close to her sometimes obnoxious younger brother. She had always been more than willing to sit and let Q prattle on and on about his newest experiments or whatever intriguing fact he had recently learned.

  
Cynthia and Claire had both moved to London in the middle of Claire's tenth year when Cynthia had received a wonderful job offer she would have been a fool to turn down. As upset as Claire had been at the time, saying a round of tearful goodbyes to Poppy and Q, she had been rather excited to see the big city.

  
Fortunately, they had both kept in touch. Cynthia still sent Christmas cards every year along with birthday presents and the occasional gift of home-baked pastries that could win all kinds of awards. Likewise, Claire still talked with Poppy and Q, sending the occasional text or email, though they weren't as close as they had once been.

  
Now, they were standing by a trolley at the far end of the aisle, patiently waiting for Q's mother. Both of them stood out among the crowd of other shoppers with their light blonde hair and strikingly beautiful features.

  
Cynthia's hair was pulled up in a messy bun atop her head, a style born out of functionality rather than fashion. She was dressed more casually than Q's mother in a pair of faded powder blue jeans, a light grey blouse, and a long white cardigan.

  
Claire was similarly dressed for comfort in form-fitting black jeans and a white blouse printed with a pale blue and black pansy flower. Her hair was down, cascading down her back and around her face in long blonde waves that bordered on curls, dark mascara making her light blue eyes stand out even at a distance.   
Q was glad to note that they were both wearing sensible shoes, both in black tennis shoes.

  
"Of course, mother," Q answered with a tight smile of his own. Tearing his hand away from the tea label he was still playing with, absentmindedly picking at it with his thumbnail, he waved at Cynthia and Claire.

  
They both waved back with wide smiles. Unsurprisingly, they looked genuinely happy to see him, unlike his mother.

  
"Anyway, I saw you and just had to come say hello," his mother remarked with no small amount of hostility in her voice, sharpening her cadence to a wicked point. There was a deep crease between her brows, eyes narrowing the slightest bit as she claimed, "It's been so long since I've seen you."

  
Q felt a stab of guilt at the words, like a sharp jab to his gut, the blade twisting violently. He viciously bit the inside of his cheek until the coppery taste of blood filled his mouth to keep from blurting out an apology he didn't owe her.

  
He swiped his tongue over the bloody bite, sucking in his cheek to wick away the metallic taste. Wetting his lips, he managed to refrain from making any sort of hasty apologies.

  
"Yes, well, my work does keep me rather busy," he asserted after a moment of hesitation, thinking back not even an hour to the harrowing day he'd had. Dealing with two-bit gang members, amateur kidnappers, and international terrorists on top of keeping double-0 agents in line was certainly enough to occupy so much of his time that he wasn't able to stay in touch with his family.

  
At least, that was the excuse he had been using for years now. Because as stressful as being Quartermaster was and as insufferable as the frequent overtime could be, it was still much better than any time spent with his family, a testament to just how horrible they could be.

  
Completely oblivious to Q's musings, not that she would actually care even if he had voiced them, his mother talked right over him. Green eyes ice cold, she asked, "Are you coming home for Christmas this year?"

  
There it was. The question he had been dreading since hearing his mother's voice. God, it was even worse actually hearing it aloud. In person, no less.

  
He never should have gone to the grocer's. Eating cat food didn't sound so terrible all of a sudden.

  
"Oh, mother, I don't think I'll be able to," he said softly, wincing dramatically in what he hoped was a convincing display of contriteness. He was much better than lying over the phone where he could hide behind the veil of distance, sequestered in the safety of his flat, out of his mother's critical sight.

  
"Come now, Quinton," she murmured, her voice an all too familiar cross between a petulant whine and a strict chastising. Pouting prettily in the way that usually got her whatever she wanted, she glibly announced, "We all miss you so much."

  
Q almost snorted, not believing it for a second. He knew his family better than that.

  
Sure, Poppy probably missed him. She had said as much during their occasional conversations over the phone, mentioning that she would love to visit London again sometime during her downtime between writing her next book and travelling around the world.

  
And he had an inkling that Robert wouldn't exactly be adverse to seeing him if the opportunity arose. Even if he was, he highly doubted Robert would really say anything to voice his displeasure.

  
But beyond that, he had no doubts that his family hadn't missed him for a single, solitary moment. He wasn't one to dwell on delusions, not anymore.   
He barely managed to avoid rolling his eyes in his mother's face at her little facile sentiment. Instead, he desperately grappled with his racing thoughts, trying to think of some sort of excuse.

  
"Mother, I'm afraid I already have plans," Q ended up declaring, miraculously avoiding stuttering like that little boy with too-thick glasses and plasters on his knees he used to. It was a rather admirable feat.

  
The lie rolled off his tongue easily enough that he probably would have been rather worried about his own morality if he hadn't already orchestrated the death of dozens of people not three hours prior.

  
Rather than give his mother any time to question his claim or allow himself to hesitate long enough for his mother to get suspicious, which she undoubtedly would do, he quickly continued on, "I'm actually spending Christmas with a—" he paused to wet his lips, a few misgivings worming their way into his conscience "—A friend from work."   
His mother raised her brows, a delicate arch that spelled out surprise, intrigue, and a hint of interest in shameless meddling. He also read the glaring trace of suspicion in her slightly narrowed eyes, almost lupine in their cold intensity.

  
"James!" Q blurted dumbly, Bond's name the first one that came to mind after spending the past fifty-something hours making sure the reckless bloke didn't manage to get himself killed. Honestly, the man seemed to have a death wish.

  
He wanted to kick himself the second he uttered the meagre syllable of Bond's first name. He didn't need his mother to think that he was spending the holidays with a man. A man that she would immediately assume was his gay lover.

  
Berating himself for his stupid brain's sluggish processing, belatedly realising that he could have just as easily claimed he was spending Christmas with Moneypenny. It would have been both more believable and better equipped for placating his meddling, judgemental mother.

  
She probably would have immediately dived headfirst into planning his and Moneypenny's wedding but at least she wouldn't look at him like he was some sort of perverted sexual deviant.

  
But with the damage already done, rather than capitulate to his own misgivings or attempt to backpedal on his pathetic lie, Q simply plowed forward. Keeping his head held high, he went on with much more confidence than he actually felt, tripping over his own words, "My coworker. His name. It's James. I'll be spending Christmas with him."   
His mother looked remarkably unimpressed and more than a little suspicious. Clearing his throat and contorting his face into what he hoped was a convincingly sympathetic expression, Q explained, "He doesn't have any family and I'd just hate for him to spend the holidays alone."

  
Like all great lies, it wasn't completely untrue. Q had read enough of Bond's file to know that he truly didn't have any living family. At least, no living family that MI6 had any knowledge or record of.

  
As far as Q could tell, the closest thing to family the agent had were the beneficiaries listed on his MI6-issued life insurance policy. In the case of Bond's untimely demise, 006 would receive some of Bond's things while the rest of his belongings were to be inherited by a man named Kincade or sold at auction.

  
Out of respect for Bond's privacy, Q had managed to tamp down on his incorrigible curiosity enough to refrain from perusing through too much of the rest of the double-0's file. It wouldn't do to disrupt the trust he had built with Bond over something so trivial.

  
He had hoped his little white lie would effectively pacify his mother but it only seemed to encourage her. Actually clapping her hands together like an excited little girl, her intricate silver bracelet jiggling with the motion, she cooed, "Oh, that's lovely. And I know just the thing! Why don't you invite James to Christmas dinner?"   
Q's heart immediately fell into his stomach. So much for dissuading his mother.

  
"Oh. Oh, no," Q immediately demurred, shaking his head as he desperately scrambled for some sort of excuse. A jumble of tangled thoughts raced through his head at lightning speed, muddling together into an indecipherable mess he had no hopes of unwinding anytime soon.

  
"We couldn't possibly, mother," he protested meekly, panic clawing at his chest with wicked talons. Running a hand through his messy hair, he offered an awkward smile, still trying to unravel the cluttered chaos that was his thoughts.

  
"I'm sure James wouldn't want to impose," he insisted, Bond's first name feeling uncomfortably foreign on his tongue. It felt a bit like an intrusion in and of itself, the same way it felt when his mother used the name he had been given at birth rather than the one he had adopted for himself and later earned through years of hard work and oftentimes vicious determination.

  
Shaking off his visceral unease, he continued on with his lie. He shook his head as he chewed his lip and claimed, "He's a rather private person."

  
Again, not exactly a lie. Bond was a notoriously private man, though Q wasn't exactly sure whether it was a direct result of his career as a double-0 or simply an inherent part of his personality. The private and professional lives of double-0 agents often overlapped, an occupational hazard of working at MI6.

  
Either way, Bond remained exceptionally tight-lipped about everything from details of his personal life to seemingly trivial details like how he took his coffee. He was probably the most secretive double-0 agent Q had ever worked with, even more so than the agents who specialised in deep cover assignments.

  
"Nonsense," his mother airily dismissed with a flourish of her fingers, as though flicking water off her hand, brushing off Q's fabricated concern. Toying with her gaudy silver bracelet, focusing all of her attention on the shiny bangles, she said, "I'm sure James would love to have a real Christmas dinner with family."

  
Q couldn't quite think of a response to that. At least, not one that wouldn't completely undermine all of his previous lies thus far.

  
The blue screen of death flashed menacingly in Q's mind eye, silently taunting him as words escaped him. He desperately grasped for words, for some semblance of a coherent response, but all he found in his head was silent nothingness.

  
"Better yet," his mother started when he failed to answer, barely giving him time to reply. With another derisive glance at the contents of his trolley, lingering on the numerous cartons of exorbitant ice cream, she suggested, "Invite him for the whole weekend."

  
"Uh..." Q drawled, words trailing off into a monosyllabic hum, drawing a blank. He wasn't exactly sure what else to say.

  
Visceral shock paired with his brain's belated processing kept him in stunned silence. His mind was like a blank slate, foggy and unfocused, messy from various etchings and multiple erasings leaving clouds of chalk dust floating in the air.

  
He was distantly aware that he was gawping at his mother like a complete imbecile, jaw slack and tired eyes wide. But he was too busy trying to formulate yet another lie to care about how stupid he must have looked.

  
His mother simply stared at him blankly, clearly expecting an answer of some sort. Shaking himself, he managed to offer, "I...suppose I could ask him. I should see him tomorrow."

  
"See that you do," she instructed primly, trailing her fingers over the various whorls of silver and floral designs on her bracelet. Sparing a glance up at Q, she sent him another not quite smile.

  
Taking a break from toying with her bracelet she leaned in to unexpectedly give Q a quick, one-armed hug that absolutely reeked of white zinfandel. Q took a reflexive step back, woefully unused to such physical affection, but after a moment returned the polite embrace, curling arm around his mother's shoulders.

  
"Call me tomorrow with James' answer," she instructed as she straightened up, brushing off her dress and rearranging her cardigan. Flashing him a quick smile, she said, "I'd like to have all of my children home for the holidays."

  
"Of course, mother," he murmured automatically as his mother turned on her heel without bothering to wait for his response. Without another word, she strutted back down the aisle towards Cynthia and Claire, her heels clicking with an air of finality.

  
Both Cynthia and Claire sent Q sympathetic looks over his mother's shoulder, well-versed in the overbearing tendencies of his mother. Q sent them a grateful wave in return, managing a weak smile.

  
A moment later, the trio of women vacated the aisle, turning to head towards the dairy section with a few lingering glances at Q. The very second they were out of sight, Q buried his face in his hands, squeezing his eyes shut.

  
Again, he assured himself that it was all just a horrible nightmare. A horrid dream wrought by too much caffeine and not enough food.

  
But with no abrupt awakening in the foreseeable future, he let out a beleaguered groan, no longer caring if he was making a scene in the middle of Tesco. He had more important things to worry about.

  
Like inviting James Bond to Christmas dinner with his family. Lovely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel the need to apologize for how much time I devoted to talking about the mission but I couldn't not write it. Hopefully, you stuck through it all!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q decides to confront Bond about his mother's invitation to Christmas dinner, sure that he can convince Bond to tell a little white lie to get them out of dinner with his family. But Bond isn't too cooperative.

Every year, Q's mother sent him a hand-knitted Christmas jumper.

She would spend weeks on end in October and November, sometimes as early as September some years, dedicating all of her time and energy to nothing but knitting. Nothing could tear her away from the task quite literally at hand.

She would knit while eating breakfast, pausing between bites of toast and sausage to finish stitches, or while in the car as Q's father drove them to church. She even brought her yarn and knitting needles to bed for a bit of late-night knitting, much to her husband's chagrin.

It was her preferred wintertime hobby, aside from playing holiday music on her beloved grand piano and watching her inane soap operas. It was a way to pass the time and entertain herself for a while.

With singular determination and lightning fast knitting needles, Q's mother devoted herself to knitting enough jumpers for all of her children. It had been a family tradition since long before Q had been born.

In more recent years, she had voluntarily added to her workload in order to account for her cherished grandchildren. She couldn't have them go without Christmas jumpers.

Said jumpers were always extremely comfortable, made with comfort in mind over anything else. They were made with the finest worsted yarn in all of Berkshire, lined with a bit of warm fleece.

The knitting itself was breathtakingly beautiful, full of seamless lines and intricate embroidery and stitching. All of which were testaments to all of the time and effort his mother always put into them, practically pouring her heart into every last stitch.

The jumpers were always appreciated and properly cherished but there was one big problem; they were all ugly as sin.

Always garishly bedecked with ridiculous designs such as smiling reindeer, dancing elves, and hordes of snowmen with top hats and scarves, they were kitschy and absolutely hideous. The kind of jumpers one wore to an ugly jumper party designed to delight in such hideous articles of clothing.

Over the years, the jumpers had featured other festive motifs such as grinning Santa Clauses that looked downright deranged and one particularly memorable of poor Mrs. Claus on a jumper for Poppy that looked more like Medusa than Mrs. Claus' cheery wife. And all of the other designs had been just as ridiculously ugly.

Just how exactly his mother actually thought them cute rather than utterly repugnant had always been a mystery to him and his siblings, all of whom had expressed similar disgust and befuddlement when presented with the jumpers.

Speaking of his siblings, they had collectively developed a tradition of their own involving the jumpers. They usually only deigned to wear them once, typically on Christmas day to appease their mother, before burying them in the back of their closets or hiding them away in their attics.

In the past few years, Q hadn't even bothered to wear the jumpers his mother sent him. His new tradition of spending Christmas alone, aside from his cats, in London had quickly started to include tossing his mother's god awful jumpers into his hallway closet to never again see the light of day.

A couple years ago, he had actually donated a handful of them to a nearby homeless shelter along with some blankets, socks, menstrual hygiene products, and boxes of non-perishables. He had admittedly felt rather guilty about that on behalf of the people in need who would receive the hideous jumpers. That was how ugly they were.

But as horribly gaudy as they were, Q decided to wear one the day after running into his mother at the supermarket.

After a luxuriously long, hot shower during which he thoroughly debated his options, Q had rummaged through his closet to pick out one of the more ostentatiously ugly jumpers from his collection, one that he had found too hideous to donate. Covered in shiny silver tinsel, it was an absolute eyesore.

It was made of deep black worsted, thick and perfect for the harshest of English winters. To keep the wool from becoming too scratchy or otherwise bothersome, it was lined with equally dark fleece from neckline to hem and down the sleeves.

The image of a large, smiling snowman was stitched on its front in bone white. A grinning, segmented blob of white, the snowman was adorned with a red scarf and matching top hat, both of which stood out in relief, made of sparkly red tinsel.

Buttons and eyes of coal had been fashioned out of multicolored pom-poms hot glued to the wool, giving the snowman a slightly deranged splash of color. Similarly, a carrot nose was formed by a tiny orange craft pipe cleaner.

The aforementioned strings of silver tinsel were wound around the sleeves of the jumper, standing out in stark contrast to the black worsted backdrop. Cut up bits of gold tinsel also decorated the jumper, acting as glimmering stars in the dark night of the black wool.

It was quite possibly the ugliest article of clothing he owned, in spite of both Bond and Moneypenny's annoyingly frequent comments about his taste in fashion, or rather lack thereof. Even his mustard colored cardigan was a vast improvement over the damned jumper.

He hoped that it would arouse enough disgust in the ever fashion conscious Bond to spark some degree of sympathy in the agent who had no other reason to assist him. Well, apart from the fact that Q had helped him avoid getting killed on several different occasions, including the previous day in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

And the month before in Kuala Lumpur. And Syria before that. And Rio de Janeiro, Islamabad, Valletta, Kathmandu, Havana, Yangon, Cape Town, and even London during the Silva debacle.

So perhaps Bond did owe Q a favor or two. Especially after he had ruined so much of Q's precious tech. But throwing in a silent plea for sympathy never hurt.

With two routes of persuasion available to him — sympathy and a tiny bit of blackmail — with the potential of a third — unashamed grovelling and begging — Q had tugged on the loathsome jumper. Coupled with some worn out trainers and a pair of dark grey trousers, he figured it was a pity-inducing ensemble more than capable of convincing Bond to lie for him.

Not that he imagined it would be very difficult to entice Bond into lying. The man did it for a living, after all.

But he also had an affinity for making Q's life much more difficult than it needed to be. Q had no doubt that refusing to help just to watch him squirm wasn't above Bond.

Self-consciously checking his reflection in his bedroom mirror, fussing with his mop of hair that absolutely refused to be tamed, Q tugged on his baggy anorak. Zipping it up to his chin, hiding the snowman from view, he grabbed his messenger bag and bid goodbye to his beloved cats who were lounging on the sofa, sprawled out lying half on top of one another.

He fidgeted the entire drive back to headquarters, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel of his hired car and fiddling with the radio. More often than not, he settled on a station of static for a bit in hopes that a bit of white noise might calm him down. It didn't.

His mind was too plagued by cluttered thoughts about how exactly he was going to so much as broach the subject with Bond to be soothed by the sound of radio static. If anything, it was only exacerbated by the irritating fuzzy sound.

Bond didn't actually owe him anything, regardless of how many times Q had effectively saved his life, and Q honestly didn't expect much. Hell, it would probably serve him right for Bond to snub his nose at him and leave him to either explain to his mother that he had lied or actually drag himself to Christmas dinner after all.

Thoughts of enduring yet another horrendous Christmas spent with his family completely overwhelmed him, memories of past Christmases drifting through his head like terrible intrusive thoughts. He desperately hoped that Bond would be feeling magnanimous enough to help him after he pleaded his case, pathetic though it may be.

Which immediately made him start agonising over how exactly he was going to explain the situation to Bond. Every possible explanation he formulated sounded absolutely ridiculous, even in his own head, ensuring that Bond would be more likely to outright laugh in his face than offer any assistance.

Several times, while stopped at red lights or stuck behind bloody dreadful drivers, he cursed himself for his nervousness despite how justified it was. He just wanted to get it all over and done with as quickly as possible.

With his only responsibility of the day collecting and subsequently filing some paperwork and hopefully logging in returned equipment, Q took his time returning the car he had hired the night before. Anything to prolong the inevitable.

He had anxiously drummed his fingers on the top of Tanner's desk as he signed the car back in, tapping his foot as he worried his bottom lip. Tanner had given him a curious look, not at all accustomed to seeing the typically calm and collected Quartermaster so twitchy aside from during international crises.

Moneypenny had given him a similar look when he crossed her path in one of the sterile white corridors of headquarters as she returned from collecting some files for Mallory. Looking as objectively gorgeous as always in a black pencil skirt and a champagne blouse that brought out the subtle highlights in her hair, she had cocked an inquisitive brow at him, clearly taking notice of his foul mood.

"Don't ask," he had mumbled miserably in response to her raised brow as he passed her, earning a round of delighted laughter for his troubles. Moneypenny's amused snickering had echoed through the corridor as he made his way towards Q Branch.

He had initially anticipated having to hunt Bond down through MI6 the way he usually had to when the agent was due for a debriefing with Q Branch or a trip to Medical, much like the way he had to chase Felix and Stravinsky through his flat in order to administer their flea medication or ear drops.

He had already begun making a mental checklist of where to search for Bond: the shooting range, the gym, the pool, possibly the canteen, maybe even Q's workshop where the agent liked to fiddle with Q's prototypes and leave requests for an exploding pen in the form of sticky notes.

Fortunately, he was spared from having to track Bond down as he was already in Q Branch when Q arrived. Q quite literally let out a sigh of relief at the welcome sight of Bond leaning against the table that Q used as his workspace, not exactly feeling up for a jog around headquarters so early in the morning.

Bond was dressed as though he were about to be sent out on another mission to god knows where, not a single hair out of place, clad in a clearly expensive suit. It was a ridiculous, preposterous notion considering the new protocols that Mallory had put into place concerning mandatory leave after missions.

Yet there Bond stood, looking as debonair as ever in a dark navy pinstripe suit that was without a doubt more expensive than all of the clothing Q had ever owned in his lifetime. Bond's cufflinks themselves, in all likelihood the sterling silver lion's heads he often wore with his navy suits, probably cost more than Q's entire outfit.

A pale blue shirt brought out Bond's eyes, even at a distance, accented by a woven tie that matched the deep navy of his suit. Bond's shoulders were made even more broad than usual by the smart black peacoat he was wearing, the unbuttoned wool accentuating his height.

Carelessly tossed aside on the table beside a stack of files, were what looked like a pair of black leather driving gloves, clearly Bond's. There were two butterfly sutures on his right cheek over the facial laceration he had received while hunting down Martínez.

He was lounging back against the table as though Q Branch was  _ his  _ domain, like a lion proudly surveying his kingdom. The large monitors on the wall behind him partially silhouetted his frame, bathing him in a halo of artificial pale blue light, making his pale hair glow like a blond mane.

In true Bond fashion, he was chatting up one of the more recently employed interns, a pretty brunette whose name Q could never quite remember despite how hard he tried. She was lingering by the edge of the table, a stack of files clutched to her ample chest as she batted her big blue eyes at Bond and giggled at his god awful chat-up lines.

Q rolled his eyes as he let himself into Q Branch, nodding at the sparse handful of analysts and assistants who looked up at him in greeting, flashing him polite smiles. He marched over to his station at the head of the room, carelessly unzipping his anorak as he did.

His sudden approach sent the brunette — Ellen? Ella? Maybe Elaine? — scurrying away with a surprised squeak and a bright blush high on her cheeks. Her bulky heels clicked loudly as she hastily retreated towards her desk to actually do her job.

"007," Q greeted coolly as he carefully slid his messenger bag off his shoulder and set it down on the table. He quickly went about booting up his laptop, fingers flying over the keys as he pulled up the appropriate screens he had designed for logging equipment back in.

It was rather presumptuous of him, mostly wishful thinking, expecting Bond to actually return any equipment. Not bothering to look at said consistently irresponsible agent, Q chided, "Must I remind you that workplace affairs are strictly prohibited? Company ink and all that?"

"Come now, Q, I was only having a bit of fun," Bond contended, watching the brunette as she hurriedly wandered back to her own station. Tucking his hands into his trouser pockets, he shifted slightly to face Q fully, informing him, "Not dipping anything in the company ink."

Q, wisely taking a moment to check his inbox for any important, time-sensitive emails from Tanner, didn't even need to look at Bond to know that he was smirking. The bastard.

Bond shifted slightly, leaning a titch closer to Q who noticed the tiny movement out of the corner of his eye. His smirk was  _ audible  _ as he commented, "If a harmless bit of flirting is so offensive to you, perhaps you shouldn't hire such beautiful people."

Q snorted, resisting the urge to roll his eyes again. Tapping a few keys to start a response to Tanner's most recent inquiry about his latest project involving improved tracking devices, he pragmatically informed Bond, "I have no say in the matter of whom MI6 employs, even when it affects my branch. That decision falls to Mallory."

He paused for a moment to squint down at his screen as a reply from Tanner popped up in his inbox with a blithe chime. It was a question concerning the tracking devices, about whether or not they were ready to be issued out to field and double-0 agents.

"But I do assure you that they hire based on qualifications and skill, not something as superficial as physical appearance," he continued, frowning down at Tanner's email. Begrudgingly typing out an admittance that he still needed some time to work out a few kinks in the design, the little buggers having a troubling tendency to stop working at random intervals, Q absently mumbled, "As you can tell from my own employment."

Bond appeared to ignore his last comment. It was something for which Q was immensely grateful, not exactly sure where the somewhat self-deprecating comment had come from.

He blamed his nerves about asking for Bond's help and the previous night's less than positive encounter with his mother. He supposed that being around his family brought out his more self-effacing side.

But Q's gratitude didn't last very long. As he finished up his email to Tanner, Bond spoke again, correcting, "True enough, I suppose. But may I remind  _ you  _ that workplace affairs aren't prohibited, just strongly advised against."

That time, Q did roll his eyes again. Refraining from groaning aloud at Bond's irritatingly imperious remark, he sniped, "Regardless, I would very much appreciate it if you left my staff alone."

Nearly all of Q's minions were already scared to death of the double-0 agents, the way that most people would be if they knew that they worked alongside some of the world's most efficient, skilled killers. They would quake in terror and fidget anxiously whenever any of the double-0s deigned to visit Q Branch, constantly on edge like rabbits in a warren that had been invaded by a hungry fox.

Once, shortly after the events of Skyfall, a code analyst had actually fainted from fright when 006 had returned from a thoroughly cocked up mission in Dubai in a strop the likes of which Q Branch had never seen. The poor analyst had literally held his breath, terrified of further upsetting the furious agent by so much as breathing, until he had turned purple and had to be carted off to Medical.

In an act of admittedly petty retribution, Q had sent 006 on his next mission without any of the explosives the agent loved so dearly, only providing him with a standard issue Walther coded to his palm print and an earpiece. The analyst had received a heartfelt apology and a box of gourmet sweets from the thoroughly chastised 006 after returning from his woefully explosion-less mission.

The last thing Q needed was any of his staff getting romantically entangled or sexually involved with one of the double-0s. He needed them focused on the matter at hand, bringing the agents back to England as unscathed as possible, not going home with them once they returned to friendly shores.

Especially since most of the agents' romances, Bond's in particular, ended one of two ways: with heartbreak or grisly death. Q didn't know which was worse.

He didn't bother telling Bond as much. Instead, he opted to send the agent a withering look as he closed out of his email. It seemed to do the trick.

"Of course. Wouldn't want to upset the king of Q Branch," Bond quipped, giving a sarcastic bow of his head with a rather dramatic flourish of his hand, twirling his fingers as he lowered his head. Q shook his own head, biting down on an inexplicably fond smile.

Straightening up, Bond leaned much closer to Q, until he was practically looming over the boffin. With a mischievous smirk to rival that of the Cheshire Cat, Bond assured him, "Speaking of which, don't be so hard on yourself, Q. You're definitely pretty enough to be recruited just for your looks."

Scoffing, Q whirled around to face Bond who instinctively took a few cautionary steps backward, distancing himself from the Quartermaster. Hands on his hips, he levelled Bond with another withering glare, clearly unamused.

But the icy scowl that had been known to send almost all of the other double-0 agents fleeing with their tails tucked between their legs seemingly had no effect on Bond. In fact, it seemed to have the complete opposite effect.

Much to Q's chagrin, Bond actually started laughing. And not his usual laughter, either. No, rather than the short huffs of laughter and low, amused chuckles that Q usually heard from the agent over the comms, Bond actually threw his head back and let out a roaring peal of laughter that startled everyone in Q Branch.

Most of the minions immediately froze. Like frightened mice praying that they weren't noticed by a prowling tomcat, they went deathly still.

All of the typing in the room ceased at once, casting Q Branch into an uncharacteristic silence. Their hands poised over their keyboards, Q's minions nervously glanced at one another in panicked confusion.

They twitched under the strain of remaining so still as Bond continued laughing, sounding half mad. They all looked to Q for guidance as the somewhat unnerving sound of Bond's laughter echoed throughout the room.

Even the brunette Bond had been flirting with before Q's arrival — Eileen, maybe? Elise? Q just knew that it started with an  _ e. _ Or did it? — looked rather taken aback, blinking at him owlishly. Q doubted she would be batting her eyes at any of the double-0 agents again anytime soon.

Q motioned for his minions to get back to work, waving off their concerned looks. He tried to reassure them with a bolstering smile, silently promising them that everything was perfectly alright.

As the minions hesitantly returned to their work, several of the bolder, more senior analysts sending him dubious glances, Q turned his attention back to Bond. The double-0 was still in the throes of his raucous laughter, practically doubled over where he stood.

With an annoyed huff, wondering just how exactly he had wound up working with a bunch of children with licences to kill, Q folded his arms over his chest and waited.

Eventually, Bond managed to regain his legendary composure, pressing his lips together in a thin white line to hold back any more bursts of laughter. As Bond bit his lip, shoulders still shaking minutely, Q impatiently demanded, "Are you quite finished?"

Bond nodded obediently, a crooked smile stretching across his lips as he did. He raked his eyes over Q in an indulgently slow once-over that might have been salacious if not for the amusement flickering in his pale blue eyes.

The crinkles are the corners of his eyes were more pronounced than usual as he smiled to himself. Speaking of Bond's eyes, they settled on the centre of Q's chest as he rather cheerfully announced, "I'd like to retract my previous statement. That jumper is hideous enough to have you sacked immediately."

Q, who had managed to almost completely forget what exactly he was wearing amidst his nervous musings and dealing with Bond, lowered his arms and looked down at himself to see what in the world was so bloody fascinating. Sure enough, among the dark worsted of his jumper, the smiling face of the snowman, colourful pom-poms and all, beamed up at him with frustratingly merry holiday cheer.

He let out a deep groan at the dreaded sight of the ridiculously ugly snowman, its perfectly stitched smile mocking him. The sight of the damnable thing's infuriating grin abruptly, and rather rudely, reminded him of why exactly he so desperately needed to talk to Bond in the first place.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, nearly knocking his glasses off in the process, he squeezed his eyes shut. As he let out a heavy sigh, he wondered why he hadn't just stayed in bed that morning with his cats and his Earl Grey and his freezer full of decadent ice cream.

His duties as Quartermaster be damned, even the rather substantial paycheque from MI6 wasn't enough to justify this sort of embarrassment.

"Honestly, Q, what on earth inspired you to purchase this monstrosity, let alone wear it to work?" Bond inquired with another laugh, cocking his head to the side as he scanned his eyes over the shiny bits of gold tinsel and fluffy multicoloured pom-poms. Shaking his head with a cluck of his tongue, he mused under his breath, "And I thought all those ridiculous cardigans of yours were awful."

Mirth glittered in his eyes as he reached out to tweak the orange pipe cleaner nose of the grinning snowman, a wide grin splitting his cheeks. Smacking Bond's hand away, Q matter-of-factly, if not a touch defensively, snapped, "My mother made it for me."

Q glanced back down at the snowman with a baleful glower as though he could set the jumper ablaze with his glare and willpower alone. Huffing under his breath, he crossed his arms over his chest, trying to obscure the snowman's painfully ecstatic face.

Bond didn't seem at all deterred. Still smirking at Q, smug as the cat that got the cream, he simply dropped his eyes to the lower portion of the jumper where the bottom half of the snowman was still visible, silver tinsel sparkling under the overhead lights of Q Branch.

Rolling his eyes, Q grabbed the placket of his anorak to tug it closed, hiding the snowman from sight altogether in an attempt to regain one meagre iota of his dignity that seemed to have fled the country entirely. Predictably, Bond's eyes immediately snapped up to meet Q's when the object of his amusement was hidden.

Like a child caught stealing from a jar of biscuits, Bond offered Q a wide, placating grin. He was suddenly the picture of innocence now that his source of entertainment was out of sight, batting his pretty blue eyes.

Q ignored the urge to box Bond's ears in, deciding to rise above the agent's puerile antics. Instead, he focused on the issue at hand.

"I was actually hoping to talk to you about that," he claimed, maintaining his white-knuckled grip on his anorak, his fingers flexing anxiously in the water-resistant material. He took a deep, steeling breath, trying to properly formulate his words so he didn't end up looking like an even bigger buffoon.

Nerves still making his fingers twitch and his stomach twist itself into knots, he wet his lips. He opened his mouth to speak only to be rather rudely interrupted by Bond.

"You wanted to talk to me about your jumper?" Bond asked with another laugh, amusement and incredulity intermingling and lacing every last syllable. Letting out a low chuckle, he shook his head and announced, "If you want my advice, I'd say burn the bloody thing. No offence to your mother, of course."

Q could have absolutely screamed. Fortunately, he managed to restrain himself, shoving his frustration aside for a moment.

"No, Bond," Q sighed heavily, already exhausted by the direction the conversation was taking. He could feel a headache blooming in the centre of his forehead, an incessant pounding like someone was ruthlessly banging a mallet against his skull.

Raising a hand, he pinched the bridge of his nose, the motion shoving his glasses further up his nose until the thick plastic frames smacked against his forehead. He took a moment to rub his thumb over his forehead, massaging the skin between his eyes and fiddling with his glasses for much longer than strictly necessary in an attempt to postpone the inevitable.

Shaking his head, he reluctantly dropped his hand back to his waist, fingers curling in the nylon of his jacket. With a brief glance up at Bond, he softly clarified, "I need to talk to you about  _ my mother." _

Now that managed to stop Bond right in his tracks.

The usually unflappable agent, unaffected by the bloodshed and viscera and other ineffable horrors that he dealt with on a nearly daily basis, froze. His cocksure smile dropped off his face as his jaw went slack, leaving him gaping at Q like a fish out of water.

His pale brows rose so high on his forehead that Q nearly lost sight of them among Bond's hairline. All traces of mirth and amusement at Q's expense vanished from the agent's face, replaced by blatant shock.

His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, the movement drawing Q's eye for a split second. Wetting his lips, Bond tilted his head to the side, a deep crease materialising between his suddenly lowered brows as he frowned at Q.

"Why in the bloody hell do you need to talk to me about your _ mother?"  _ Bond demanded brusquely, narrowing his eyes at Q. He was clearly wary, tension suddenly apparent in the play of his broad shoulders and the subtle straightening of his spine, the nearly imperceptible clenching of his jaw.

As a spy, and more importantly, as a double-0 agent, Bond had become rather adept at hiding his emotions. It was a manner of self-preservation, a survival tactic, shrouding his motives and emotions from the marks he was sent to seduce or kill or sometimes both.

It was one of the first lessons MI6 agents were taught, concealing their emotions. And Bond had always been a rather quick learner.

But just as Bond had spent years mastering control over his body's involuntary responses and learning to carefully mask his emotions, Q had mastered the art of reading double-0 agents. Throughout his thus far rather short tenure as Quartermaster, he had become rather fluent in field agents.

He could detect the slightest nuances of emotion in the way that a double-0 agent so much as breathed, could differentiate between inherent cockiness and manufactured bravado intended to hide any pain and avoid a frogmarch down to Medical. He could tell when his agents — and they most certainly were  _ his  _ agents — were seriously injured or simply trying to avoid filling out their AAR paperwork, when they were truly alright or required an appointment with Psych.

It was something he prided himself on, being able to decode the jumbled puzzles that were the double-0 agents. A degree in psychology — which he had gotten on a whim while in university — didn't exactly hurt his pursuit to decipher the double-0s.

So, despite Bond's carefully shuttered expression, Q could clearly see how genuinely surprised the man was. Suspicion and confusion were written clearly across his face as he tensed further, looking about ready to bolt.

Trying to, at the very least, assure Bond that he didn't have any particularly nefarious ulterior motives, Q relaxed his arms, letting his jacket swing open and the irritatingly happy snowman peek out again.

He resolutely met Bond's eyes as he let out another heavy sigh, still grappling with what in the world he was actually going to say. There was no twisting of words or contortion of the facts that could possibly save him from the inevitable embarrassment he was sure to endure.

With that in mind, he twiddled his thumbs and chewed the inside of his cheek until Bond's expectant expression slowly morphed into one of pure impatience. With no other recourse, save for quite literally running away like a coward, Q finally announced, albeit very softly, "I need a favour."

"Oh, really?" Bond practically purred, his voice deepening to what could only be described as a sultry rasp, loath as Q was to do so. It was the same husky not-quite whisper he used while on missions to seduce his marks, the same one Q had heard what seemed like a million times over the comms.

A smirk quickly replaced Bond's slack-jawed expression as he tugged one of his hands out of his pockets, setting it on the table beside his discarded gloves. He leaned a bit closer to Q, until the subtle scent of his undoubtedly exorbitant cologne was all Q could smell, coffee and tobacco and leather filling his nostrils.

Smirk stretching wider, Bond hummed, "The almighty Quartermaster needs a favour from  _ me?" _

Q choked back a groan. He should have known that Bond was going to be absolutely insufferable about the whole thing, the same way that he was insufferable about most other things.

He really should have just told his mother that he was spending Christmas with Moneypenny. Eve might ruthlessly tease him about it and demand that he buy her drinks for the next six months but Q had no doubt whatsoever that she would lie for him in a second if asked. Maybe even without being asked.

Hell, he probably should have just asked Tanner for his help when he saw him earlier. Should have asked the Chief of Staff to lie about his name for just a moment. In return, he would probably get himself dragged to the exact kind of budget meetings he usually avoided like the plague, but it would definitely be worth it.

Even Mallory would have been a better option than Bond. He might ask Q to put in a few more hours at MI6, not that it was really necessary considering the fact that Q practically lived at headquarters, but it would be a small price to pay, a simple favour in return for a lifesaving lie.

And if Mallory hadn't been cooperative or had been tied up in the endless meetings that were apparently an occupational hazard for being head of MI6, Q could always turn to the other double-0s. They were usually more than willing to help Q with whatever he might need. Just two weeks ago, 009 had helped him rearrange his office, volunteering to move to move his desk.

He was sure that any number of the highly esteemed agents would have been extremely helpful, no questions asked. With no expectation for a favour in return, his guidance during missions more than sufficient compensation.

Bond, in stark contrast, was a wildcard. His request for a favour in return could range anywhere from a godforsaken exploding pen to a brand new, state of the art Aston Martin that he would almost certainly wreck within a few days of receiving it.

Either way, whatever Bond asked for in return was sure to be completely asinine and headache inducing, much like the man himself. Q narrowly avoided rolling his eyes at the mere thought.

Instead, he settled for taking a deep, calming breath to keep from doing anything rash like calling Bond a cocky git and saying to hell with it all. Running a hand through his hair, he managed to refrain from giving in to his urge to berate Bond, and carefully began, "I happened to run into my mother last night. Bumped into her at Tesco."

Admittedly, it was less of a bump and more of a calculated pounce on his mother's part but Q didn't think that Bond necessarily had to be privy to that little piece of information. It was probably best to keep the conversation as streamlined as possible.

Bond nodded, blinking slowly like an indolent tomcat lazing in the sun as he did, clearly bored by the conversation now that the shock had subsided. He pulled his other hand out of his pocket to motion for Q to continue on. So Q did.

"Well, she invited me to spend Christmas with her and the rest of our family," he explained, awkwardly gesticulating with his own hands purely out of habit, the way he did when demonstrating how a new gadget worked. Bond lowered his eyes to watch the movement of Q's frenzied hands, always amused by Q's little idiosyncrasies.

Q cleared his throat to regain Bond's full attention, feeling his face flush as he forced himself to still his hands. Shaking himself, he hurriedly added, "Which is the absolute last thing I want to do."

Bond tipped his head to the side at that, his brow furrowing just enough to be noticeable. Blanching at the mere thought of explaining his horrid family to Bond, Q succinctly dismissed, "It's nothing you need to concern yourself with. All you need to know is that I would much rather spend the holidays by myself."

"That doesn't sound at all depressing," Bond scoffed, much to Q's annoyance. Leave it to Bond to seize any given opportunity to mock Q, capitalising on his confession to deride his solitary celebratory habits like every other person Q had ever mentioned them to.

And, of course, because Q could never be so lucky, Bond wasn't done quite yet. With a wide, self-satisfied grin, Bond continued, "Let me guess; you spend the holidays in your infamous pyjamas with a bottle of wine and your precious cats."

Q didn't dignify Bond's jest with a response. Mostly because Bond wasn't actually wrong about how Q spent Christmas day.

Rather, Q just stared blankly at Bond until the other man bothered to look the slightest bit contrite for his comments, settling his hands on his slim hips as he waited. Once Bond finally rolled his eyes and stopped smirking quite so broadly, Q asked, "May I continue?"

"By all means," Bond replied tongue-in-cheek, clearly beyond amused by the proceedings. Q shook his head in equal parts exasperation and exhaustion, wanting nothing more than to just crawl back into bed. But with his bed a recourse not readily available to him, he simply plowed forth with his explanation.

"As I said, I would rather spend Christmas by myself, so I lied to her," he explained, clasping his hands together to avoid gesturing too wildly. Feeling progressively more foolish as he did, he went on, "I told her that I'm spending Christmas with a friend from work."

He was sure that he sounded like a bloody lunatic, a stark raving mad fool. And the look on Bond's face didn't exactly dispel any of his suspicions.

Bond's eyes were slightly narrowed, his brows drawn together but not completely furrowed. The corners of his mouth were still twisted up in a smug grin but there was also still a slight bit of tension in his jaw.

Despite feeling like a complete imbecile, Q forced himself to go on. Shoving his anxieties aside before he could lose his nerve entirely, he trudged on, "Unfortunately, she just told me to invite my friend to Christmas with the family."

"And you need my help because...?" Bond drawled, cutting Q off as he arched a curious brow. He looked both bored by the conversation and simultaneously intrigued by the fact that Q was requesting his assistance, shifting his weight slightly as he straightened his tie with his free hand.

Q winced at the question Bond posed. Still wincing as he scratched the back of his head, he reluctantly admitted, "Because I may or may not have mentioned your name specifically."

Bond's other brow rose to join the first. He blinked a few times, surprise freezing him stock-still for a long moment. Once the moment passed, the shock did as well, melting away as a thoroughly amused smirk twisted his lips up at the corner again.

He looked entirely too smug for Q's liking, for all intents and purposes resembling Q's cats when they got into something they knew they shouldn't have but also knew that they would never face any negative consequences beyond being barred from his bedroom for about half an hour before Q felt guilty and let them in.

It was rather fitting. Q had a bit in his contract about assaulting the double-0 agents he worked with.

"Oh, don't look at me like that!" Q snapped peevishly before Bond could say anything. He kept his voice low so as not to startle his poor minions for the umpteenth time. There was no need to rile them up again.

Feeling somewhat childish, Q folded his arms over his chest and glared daggers at Bond. A touch defensive, he hissed, "I didn't do it on purpose. I was exhausted and your name was the first one that came to mind."

His explanation did absolutely nothing to dampen Bond's nearly palpable conceitedness. If anything, it only made it worse, Bond's smirk growing ever larger as he murmured, "On your mind a lot, am I, Q?"

Q rolled his eyes so hard he was rather surprised that his extraocular muscles didn't simply capitulate and let his eyes roll out of their sockets and through Q Branch.

In a desperate bid for patience, he dragged a hand down over his face, careful not to smudge his glasses. Through grit teeth, he muttered, "Considering I spend nearly all of my time making sure you don't get yourself killed? Yes, you are. Occasionally."

Bond's arrogant smirk didn't budge. Dropping his hand with a beleaguered sigh, Q resumed glaring at the smug agent. Trying to maintain his patience, he announced, "Look, I just need you to tell my mother that you can't go. That's all."

"Why can't you just tell her?" Bond asked, his question sensible enough to irritate Q to no end. Smirk still firmly in place because Bond was nothing if not a right bastard, he very helpfully pointed out, "She is  _ your  _ mother."

Q quite valiantly resisted the urge to throttle Bond, instead tightening his arms around himself, fingers twitching with the urge to maim something. Still a titch defensive, and hating himself for it, he retorted, "Quite right. She's  _ my  _ mother. Which is why I know for a fact that she won't take my word alone. She'll insist on talking to you herself."

Q wasn't even exaggerating. His mother had always had a nasty habit of not believing him, constantly poking holes in his stories and relentlessly questioning his credibility. His father was even worse, he had no qualms about straightforwardly accusing Q of being a liar.

Judging by Bond's expression alone, a familiar mix of amusement and slight apprehension that Q had first seen in the National Gallery, he wasn't quite convinced either. And poor Q wanted to bang his head against the wall.

"I just need you to tell her a little white lie, that's all," Q entreated, his voice threatening to dissolve into a desperate whine. Which at that point was completely fine with Q since it wasn't as though he had much shame left.

He was willing to offer anything Bond wanted; guns, cars, fifty year old Scotch, a bloody exploding pen. Desperation had a way of eroding one's resolve.

But Bond didn't appear to be convinced as he folded his arms over his chest and leaned more heavily against the edge of the table. Q sagged in defeat, running a hand through his hair again as he practically pleaded, "Just tell her that you have to work or something. That's all I'm asking."

"And why exactly should I help you?" Bond inquired, leaning closer to Q as though he wasn't already invading the Quartermaster's personal space. He tilted his head to the side with a quick raise of his brows, looking exceedingly punchable.

But Q wasn't one to give up so easily, not when it meant having to deal with his wretched family. He squared his shoulders as he set his hands on his hips, resolutely meeting Bond's eyes as he helpfully supplied, "Apart from the fact that I've saved your life several times over, yesterday included?"

Bond just nodded, clearly wanting more incentive. The bastard. He solidified his designation as an insufferable git by pointing out, "Well, that is your job, after all."

Q was man enough, so to speak, to admit that Bond had a rather good point, feeling his resolve wavering. Edging ever closer to abject desperation, he implored, "Please, Bond. I'll give you anything. What do you want?"

Q immediately his poor choice of words when Bond's smirk turned downright lascivious. He regretted it doubly so when Bond quite cavalierly proposed, "What about a blowjob?"

Q wanted to throw his head back and scream, maybe stomp his feet and pull his hair out, whine and complain until he got his way. Instead, not wanting to tarnish his hard-won reputation as the levelheaded Quartermaster, he just narrowed his eyes at Bond.

He lowered his eyes to Bond's chest, focusing on where Bond's custom-made Walther would be in its shoulder holster. Taking a half step forward, he raised his eyes to meet Bond's, keeping his voice dangerously low as he said, "You know, killing you would give me the perfect excuse not to go—" he threw his voice up a bit higher for effect "—'Sorry, mum, can't make it to Christmas this year, I have to attend the funeral of a dear friend.'"

"Oh, I see," Bond hummed, raising his chin with a thoughtful pout, clearly unfazed by Q's remark. He nodded to himself, endlessly self-satisfied as he commented, "Now I'm a dear friend."

"You're a pain in the arse is what you are," Q grumbled with a defeated huff. Rolling his eyes, he turned his attention back to his laptop, the screen gone black from inactivity.

He tapped the touchpad, re-illuminating the screen, and busied himself with once again navigating to the proper window for logging his equipment back in. He was already planning his next move.

If Bond didn't want to help him, fine. It wasn't as though Bond was his last resort. No, far from it.

After finishing up with Bond and filling out the necessary paperwork, he would simply plead his case to Tanner like he should have done in the first place. And because Tanner was much more sympathetic than Bond and wasn't a complete bloody sod, Q would have him talk to his mother for a bit and inform him that neither of them could attend Christmas dinner.

Then, after he turned to work following his scheduled leave, Q would subject himself to whatever horrid budget and finance meetings Tanner saw fit to drag him to. It wasn't like he hadn't survived them before, if only barely.

And then he could go home to his cosy bed and comfortable pyjamas and affectionate cats and his brand new tin of Earl Grey. He could lounge around his flat all of Christmas day, indulging in some exorbitant chocolates and a bottle of two of pinot noir if he so fancied.

He wouldn't have to worry about his father's disdainful glances throughout Christmas dinner or force himself to weather his siblings' judgemental silence. He wouldn't have to suffer through his mother's futile attempts to matchmake, constantly trying to set him up with her friends' daughters.

He could Skype with Poppy who would tell him all about her own holiday in whatever foreign city she was vacationing in, describing in great detail all of the gorgeous men she had met. He might even be able to text Elizabeth to wish her a happy holiday, a sentiment which she would pass on to his nieces and nephews all of whom he hadn't seen since his brief appearance at his parents' for Easter.

He could actually enjoy his holiday rather than force himself to endure it. But before he could do any of that, he had to log Bond's equipment in, if there actually was any, and fill out a meagre handful of forms. He just needed Bond to cooperate for more than two seconds.

Speaking of Bond, the agent let out a soft huff of laughter as he unfolded his arms and tucked his hands back into his pockets. Clicking his tongue, he tsk-ed, "Now, Q, is that any way to talk to someone who's willing to help you?"

Q froze. His fingers poised delicately over the keyboard, his entire body tensed, cautious anticipation coiling in his stomach and stilling him completely.

He was sure that he must have somehow misheard. Why in the world would Bond actually agree to help him? But as he replayed Bond's words over in his head, he realised that he hadn't misheard at all.

As the realisation gradually sank in, he whipped his head to the side to gawp at Bond, utterly incredulous. The double-0 was smiling indulgently at him, looking about as innocuous as a professional spy and trained assassin could, appearing surprisingly genuine.

"Really?" Q demanded, completely flabbergasted by Bond's sudden willingness to help. He was admittedly rather suspicious, waiting for Bond to recant and laugh in his face for being so stupidly gullible, but he also knew the dangers of looking a gift horse in the mouth.

He narrowed his eyes at Bond, crossing his arms over his chest, as he turned bodily towards the other man. Tipping his head to the side, he looked Bond up and down, challenging, "You're really going to help me?"

"Of course. When you ring your mother, I'll talk to her and explain why we can't attend Christmas dinner," Bond confirmed, flashing his almost obnoxiously white teeth at Q. Friendly grin in place, he shrugged, assuring Q, "It's the least I can do for my Quartermaster. And for an exploding pen."

"Of course," Q echoed with a nod, fighting the urge to actually  _ hug  _ Bond. But when he considered the fact that the man was armed and unimaginably dangerous, he managed to restrain himself.

He didn't exactly think it wise to ambush a fully armed, highly trained double-0 agent with unexpected physical contact. Especially not when the agent had just agreed to help him.

Instead, he fumbled for his cell phone, more eager to call his mother than he ever had been before, as absolutely horrible as that sounded. He shoved his hand into his trouser pocket, pulling his phone out with a triumphant hum.

In his haste, he accidentally typed in his unlock code wrong twice, his fingers uncharacteristically clumsy as they slid over the touchscreen. Once he finally opened his phone, he typed in his mother's phone number from memory and hit  _ dial _ , raising the phone to his ear.

He had to wait a few moments before his mother answered, the wait giving him some time to try and formulate what in the world he was going to say, mentally preparing his arguments while simultaneously thinking of designs for exploding pens. After several rings, his mother answered the phone with a cheerful, "Quinton!"

"Hello, mother," he greeted, wincing a bit at the jarring sound of his given name. He glanced at Bond out of the corner of his eye, finding the agent patiently waiting, a soft smile on his lips.

Turning his attention back to his phone call, he found himself chewing his lip. Softly clearing his throat, he announced, "I'm just calling to let you know that unfortunately, James and I won't be able to make it to Christmas."

"Oh, come now, Quinton," his mother tutted, her disapproval and disappointment clear in her icy tone. Q tried not to flinch, hunching his shoulders under the weight of her reproach as she went on, "I'm sure you can. There can't possibly be a good reason why you can't."

"Well, I am working on something rather important for work," he attempted, his eyes darting over to his laptop for a moment. It was true, he still had to fix the issues with his new tracking devices. If possible, he would have liked for them to be mission ready before the new year.

His mother scoffed, the harsh sound making him tense. Sounding utterly bored with Q's excuse — he could just picture her absentmindedly examining her manicure as she lounged on the sofa — his mother pointed out, "You can just work on it here."

Q thought about that for a moment, considering the possibility of tinkering with delicate, expensive tracking devices at his parents' home instead of in the security of his own flat where he kept a fully equipped workshop in the form of a desk he had constructed himself. Just the thought of fiddling with RFID chips half the size of a pinky nail in addition to suffering through interacting with his family nearly gave him a migraine.

"Even if I brought my work to the house, I'd still have to worry about the cats," he explained, watching as Bond bit his lip to hold back a small chuckle, shaking his head. Ever since he had offhandedly mentioned that he owned two cats, Bond had refused to relent with the ridiculous cat jokes, endlessly amused by Q's choice of pets.

Once, Bond had returned from a week-long mission in New York City with a gift bag full of cat toys and tins of wet food which he had left in Q's office. Q had been rather annoyed that the only thing Bond had bothered to bring back from his trip to the States was treats rather than equipment but Felix and Stravinsky had been quite ecstatic.

His mother's voice distracted him from his absent reminiscing. Sighing again, she simply instructed, "Just hire someone to watch them. I'm sure they have services for that."

"Oh, but I'd just hate to take someone else's Christmas away from them just to watch the cats," Q simpered, catching a glimpse of Bond snickering out of the corner of his eye. Not that he blamed him. He knew that he was laying it on a bit thick, but he was desperate.

"Then just bring the bloody cats," his mother firmly insisted, a harsh edge to her crisp voice. Huffing under her breath, she impatiently went on, "It's not as though they wouldn't survive here."

"That's very kind of you," he assured her, not wanting to seem completely ungrateful. Scratching the back of his head, inadvertently mussing his already disheveled hair, he carefully pointed out, "But I highly doubt that they'd fare well with Clyde."

It was true; his parents' dog Clyde, a massive English mastiff the size of a miniature horse, was a rather sweet beast but he didn't exactly relish the thought of his poor cats having to tiptoe around on eggshells for fear of being chased by the sometimes overzealous canine. A gentle giant though he may have been, Clyde could sometimes be a bit too enthusiastic, not realising that the cats didn't exactly want to be his friends.

A houseful of small children with inquisitive hands and no forethought as to what might happen if they yanked a cat's tail wasn't the most ideal environment, either.

"Enough about your cats," his mother instructed, leaving no room whatsoever for any argument. Sniffing delicately, she inquired, "Now what did James say? Have you spoken to him yet?"

"Yes, he's right here," Q reported, tilting his head to face Bond who was pushing himself off the table, straightening his tie and brushing fluff off of his suit. Turning his attention back to his mother, Q reluctantly offered, "Uh, would you like to speak to him?"

"Yes, yes, put him on," his mother urged as Bond prowled closer like a well-dressed leopard, holding his hand out to motion for Q to hand him the phone. Q hesitantly turned the phone over to Bond, worrying his lip and wringing his hands.

It was Q's turn to lean against the desk as Bond talked to his mother. Almost ridiculously nervous, he occupied himself with tapping out a few random chords on his thigh as Bond cordially addressed his mother.

"Yes, this is James," Bond said by way of greeting, sending Q a bright, bolstering grin and a quick wink, both of which calmed the tense Quartermaster a titch. His smile growing wider, Bond announced, "It's a pleasure to meet you, too, Evelyn."

Bond let out a polite huff of laughter at something Q's mother said as he started walking in a small loop, his free hand tucked in his pocket. Q waited patiently as Bond and his mother exchanged trite niceties, still chewing his bottom lip.

He was considering different designs for Bond's bloody exploding pen, debating between ballpoint and fountain for the basic design and push-button mechanisms compared to barrel action retractable pens to detonate the explosion, when he heard Bond begin, "Ah, yes. About Christmas..."

Q quite literally held his breath, feeling his chest constrict in almost painful anticipation. He could feel hope and dread rising in his throat, both threatening to choke him as they battled for dominance within him.

He was so close to being free from any familial obligation until next December, free from enduring yet another horrid holiday with his insufferable family. Like teetering on the edge of a precipice, with safety so nearby but inevitable danger even closer, barely a step away, Q felt trapped in an odd sort of purgatory, stuck between falling backward into the heavenly paradise of his solitary holiday and careening over the edge and towards Christmas dinner.

He blamed his nervousness for his hyperbolic thoughts.

"Well, you see..." Bond started, drawing Q's attention back to the current conversation. A moment later, Q felt himself slip over the edge and plummet downward towards horrified resignation, letting out a shocked gasp as Bond claimed, "I'd be honoured to spend Christmas with you and your family. It's been years since I've had a proper Christmas dinner."

Q instantly saw red. He curled his hands into fists, standing up straighter as his breath began to come in short pants. He quite literally wanted to murder Bond, already envisioning all of the gruesomely creative ways in which he could torture Bond for days on end.

He hadn't been so overwhelmingly angry since the newly designated 003 had mistaken him for an intern and spent half an hour crassly harassing him with crude sexual innuendo while simultaneously complaining about the incompetent Quartermaster. His recollection of how he had brutally set the other agent straight was cut short by Bond sauntering back over to his side, infuriating grin still in place.

"Problem solved," Bond proudly announced, setting Q's phone down on the table like a cat bringing its owner a dead bird despite knowing how repulsive they found it.

"You arsehole!" Q hissed viciously, swatting Bond's arm as hard as he possibly could, disproportionately pleased with the fact that Bond actually flinched. Ready to follow up the swat by tearing Bond's head off, he snarled, "What the bloody hell were you thinking?!"

"I was thinking a nice, home-cooked Christmas dinner might be nice," Bond cavalierly informed him, rubbing his arm where Q had hit him. Shrugging, he smirked and continued, "Besides, I'd like the chance to see what sort of family you come from."

"So you're condemning us both to Christmas with my family?!" Q screeched incredulously, struggling to keep his voice low enough to not disturb his minions. Bond's logic made no sense at all.

If all he wanted was a home-cooked Christmas dinner, Q would be more than happy to cook the bastard a bloody five course meal complete with devils on horseback and Christmas pudding. If he wanted to know what Q's family was like, Q would sit down with him and tell him all about his wretched childhood, from the time his eldest sister had stabbed him with the file on her nail clippers to when he had received his first degree and only Poppy had bothered to come to his graduation.

Q just didn't understand it. A moment later, something else occurred to him and he rounded on Bond again, growling, "And you do realise that it's not just dinner, right? She's invited you for the entire bloody weekend!"

Bond's genuinely shocked expression was answer enough. Q wanted to pull his hair out.

"That's right," Q informed him, nodding a bit frantically. Letting out a deep sigh, running a hand through his hair, he defeatedly reported, "An entire weekend with my horrible family—" he flashed Bond a sarcastic smile "—Starting tomorrow."

Shaking his head and pressing his lips together to keep from cursing a blue streak in the middle of Q Branch, Q grabbed his phone and stuffed it back into his pocket. He angrily slammed his laptop shut, slipping it back into his messenger bag, zipping it closed with a bit more force than strictly necessary.

"You can log your equipment back in with R," Q directed, slinging the strap of his messenger bag over his shoulder and turning back around to face Bond. Curling his lip, he stalked closer to the agent, prodding him in the chest with his index finger as he snarled, "And so help me, 007, all of your equipment better be intact or I will personally make this weekend a living hell for you!"

If Q was going to be miserable all weekend, then so would Bond. It was only fitting considering Bond was the one who had just resigned them to their gloomy fate.

Still poking Bond in the chest, ignoring the man's thoroughly affronted expression, he continued on, "Pack your bags. I'll pick you up tomorrow at half twelve."

With that, Q turned and swiftly made his way out of Q Branch, leaving an astonished Bond in his wake, a stiff drink and a long night of sleep on his mind. The snowman on his jumper smiled the whole way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the plot thickens! Hopefully you're enjoying it so far!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you're enjoying it!  
> You can find me on Tumblr (hale-of-stiles-heart) if you want to send me prompts or anything!


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